Notching up 29 sold-out stadium shows, 1.8 million ticket sales and well over £100m in box office receipts, Take That’s 2011 Progress run with Robbie Williams remains the biggest concert tour the UK has ever seen. But the group’s monstrous live business extends far beyond that zenith, even pre-dating their 2005 revival.

“They had the two biggest-selling tours of all-time in the UK,” says their promoter, SJM Concerts MD Simon Moran. “The ’09 Circus tour did over 1.15 million tickets ...