The beginning of 2026 has been dominated by 2016 nostalgia, but on Billboard.com, we’re supersizing it and going back to 2006. We’ve already looked back at some of the most iconic songs and trends from that year, but now, we’re looking at the biggest concert tours from 20 years ago.

The touring industry of 2006 was quite different from the current landscape. In the last two decades, ticket prices have surged and Boxscore chart-toppers have diversified, but there are some constants, as Kenny Chesney, Pearl Jam and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, among others, continue to rank among the biggest acts on stage well into the 2020s.

Beyond the top 10, Mariah Carey landed at No. 25 on The Adventures of Mimi trek. That tour supported the previous year’s The Emancipation of Mimi, which famously returned Carey to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the decade’s biggest song, “We Belong Together.” Ranked by gross revenue from ticket sales, that tour’s $26.4 million take, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, wouldn’t have cracked the top 100 in 2025.

Though a near-constant presence in the upper reaches of this decade’s Top Tours ranking, Coldplay was, respectably, No. 19 in 2006 in the middle of Twisted Logic Tour. On the Music of the Spheres World Tour, the band has been in the top five of the year-end list consecutively from 2022 to 2025, topping the tally for each of the last two years.

While concert grosses have ballooned over the years, ratings for network television have shrunk. Back in 2006, American Idol was the biggest show in the United States, hovering around 30 million viewers per episode. Its annual spinoff tour featuring that season’s top contestants was a consistent draw, ranking at No. 13 with $35.3 million and 647,000 tickets sold over 59 shows.

Keep reading for more info on the top 10 touring acts of 2006, according to Billboard Boxscore’s year-end chart from 20 years ago. The figures below only account for the shows these artists played in the 2006 chart year. Some of these tours began in 2005 or continued in 2007, building upon these grosses and attendance figures.

Just missing out? Billy Joel and Rascal Flatts at Nos. 11 and 12, respectively. The former grossed just under $50 million and the latter barely surpassed one million tickets sold — 1,000,036 to be exact.