The top tours of 2008 include some with Seattle-area stops

2009 is just underway, but when it comes to the concert scene, we already know what some of the biggest tours will be. Lil Wayne and Britney Spears will both hit arenas soon — he plays KeyArena Jan. 25, and Spears' comeback tour arrives at the Tacoma Dome April 9.

And as for last year? Madonna was the queen of the road during 2008, thanks to ticket sales of more than $105 million for her "Sticky and Sweet" tour.

The Material Girl was the top concert attraction in North America during the year according to Pollstar, the concert-tracking magazine, although Billboard recently put Bon Jovi atop its annual ranking of the year's biggest-grossing tours. Madonna's tour didn't play Seattle, but she performed to a sold-out crowd at the BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, B.C., in October. Billboard looks at worldwide results as reported from Nov. 14, 2007, to Nov. 11 of this year, while Pollstar measures only box-office results in North America during the 2008 calendar year.

At No. 2 on Pollstar's list is Celine Dion, who took in $94 million with her first tour since ending her long residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and returning to the concert trail with her "Taking Chances" tour. Dion raked in an average of $4.6 million per show, according to Pollstar, and pulled in around 19,000 fans to the Tacoma Dome mid-October — at an average of $125 a ticket, and $400 for premium seats.

The Eagles claimed the No. 3 spot with tour receipts of $73.4 million, followed by Kenny Chesney in fourth place with $72.2 million and Bon Jovi in fifth with $70.4 million. The closest any of those acts got to Seattle was Bon Jovi's show at GM Place in Vancouver December 2007.

Right behind Bon Jovi is Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, which tallied $69.3 million on the group's "Magic" tour.

Springsteen ranked No. 2 on Billboard's list, which reported nearly triple the tour grosses worldwide for both him and Bon Jovi — $204.5 million and $210.6 million, respectively — that Pollstar totaled for each act in North America during the year. Springsteen & the E Street Band played to a packed audience back in March at KeyArena.

"All I can say [about the differences] is we have 100 percent of the individual show data to support these tour numbers," Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni told the Los Angeles Times.

Pollstar's Top 10 is dominated, as it has been for years, by rock and pop veterans. Rounding the list are Neil Diamond at ($59.8 million), Rascal Flatts ($55.8 million), the Police ($48 million) and Tina Turner ($47.7 million). Diamond played a near-capacity crowd at KeyArena in September, and Rascal Flatts performed to a sold-out crowd at the Tacoma Dome this past April.

Seattle Times reporter Marian Liu contributed to this article. Contact her at mliu@seattletimes.com.