Road Work: Bruno Mars Readies His First World Tour in Nearly a Decade

Coming out of the 24K Magic Tour, Mars reunited with his “Finesse” partner, Cardi B, on “Please Me.” That track matched its predecessor, peaking at No. 3 on the Hot 100 and topping Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for a week in March 2019. Together, they co-headlined a Super Bowl weekend show at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, selling out at 14,200 tickets.

Months after ruling the R&B charts, Mars hit No. 3 on Hot Rock Songs as a featured player on Ed Sheeran’s “Blow,” with Chris Stapleton.

Mars and Anderson .Paak formed Silk Sonic in 2021, a throwback R&B duo that, despite the basic trappings of a side project, matched some of Mars previous chart highs. “Leave the Door Open” was the duo’s first single, topping the Hot 100 for two weeks. Their album – An Evening with Silk Sonic – followed in November, launching another top five hit in “Smokin’ Out the Window.”

“Leave the Door Open” swept the 2022 Grammy awards, including wins for record and song of the year. The duo’s presence was so dominant that by the time the album was eligible at the following year’s ceremony, they cheekily withheld it from official submission: “We truly put our all on this record, but Silk Sonic would like to gracefully, humbly and most importantly, sexually, bow out of submitting our album this year.”

The album was a namesake for An Evening with Silk Sonic at Park MGM, the duo’s 2022 residency at the Vegas theater. Across 34 shows, it grossed $50.4 million and sold 170,000 tickets.

Speaking of the Park MGM, Las Vegas was already home for Mars. First, he played 11 shows across two years at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan, earning $4.1 million off 29,700 tickets.

Then, he began Bruno Mars at Park MGM, an ongoing residency that has become one of the biggest in history. It kicked off on Dec. 30, 2016, three months before the 24K Magic World Tour started. It started slow, playing spotted weekends during his international legs, but intensified after the pandemic with 23 shows in 2023 and another 23 in ’24. Over 110 shows through New Year’s Eve 2025, it has grossed $197.2 million and sold 574,000 tickets, standing as the highest-grossing residency in the history of Dolby Live, formerly known as the Park Theater.

After the Silk Sonic residency, and amid Mars’ own solo Vegas run, Mars began playing one-off shows internationally. Loosely grouped together as Bruno Mars Live, these dates spanned from Nov. 28, 2022 at the Al Dana Amphitheatre in Zallaq, Bahrain, to Nov. 5, 2024 at Estadio do Mineirao in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In between, he largely visited cities in Latin America (Mexico City, Santiago, and Sao Paulo, among others) and Asia (Tokyo, Jakarta, Manila and more) while also helping to open the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif. on Aug. 15-16, 2024.

Altogether, Mars played 43 reported shows that fit under the banner of Bruno Mars Live. Collectively, those dates sold almost two million tickets.

Mars was back with new music in 2024, and again, he wasn’t alone. He and Lady Gaga released “Die with a Smile”, ultimately topping the Hot 100 for five weeks and the Global 200 for 18. A year and a half later, it finished 2025 as the No. 1 year-end song for the former chart and No. 2 on the latter.

“Die with a Smile” was blocked on the year-end Global 200 ranking by Mars himself. “APT.,” with BLACKPINK’s ROSÉ, was released on Oct. 18, 2024, and immediately conquered the charts, leading the Global 200 for 12 weeks the Global Excl. U.S. tally for a record-setting 19 frames.

“Die with a Smile” won Mars his 16th Grammy (best pop duo/group performance), while both songs nabbed nominations for song of the year.

“Fat, Juicy & Wet,” with Sexyy Red, followed in January 2025, including a music video that also featured Gaga and ROSÉ. The track’s impact was softer than its concurrent chart-toppers but still cracked the top 20 on the Hot 100.

After nearly a decade of varied hit collaborations and concerts in Vegas and around the world, Mars put all the pieces together in 2026. “I Just Might” became his 10th chart-topper on the Hot 100 and follow-up single “Risk It All” became his third on the Global 200. The Romantic opened as his first No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200.

That brings us to The Romantic Tour, launching tonight in Las Vegas, decupling his local reach from his 5,200-capacity residency at Dolby Live to more than 50,000 seats at Allegiant Stadium. It’ll be the first of 24 dates in the United States and Canada, followed by 20 in the United Kingdom and Europe, another 30 in the U.S. and Canada, and four final performances in Mexico City. He’ll be in stadiums every single night, and most markets have multiple shows on the schedule – only eight stops on the entire tour are one-night-only engagements.

The Romantic Tour’s lean toward North America is reflective of his touring history: he has reported more than 400 shows in the U.S. and Canada throughout his career, which is more than five times his count from any other continent. Still, the 24K Magic Tour played significant legs around the world, selling more than 250,000 tickets each in Asia, Europe, Oceania and South America, in addition to nearly 1.5 million in North America. He has left the door open, as Mars might say himself, to as-yet-unannounced legs in additional international regions.

Regardless, The Romantic Tour is bound to be among the best-selling treks of 2026, almost certainly cruising to more than three million tickets by year’s end.