As we all kow, Madonna will wrap her Confessions Tour tomorrow at the Tokyo Dome, but the great news comes in from Billboard today that “Confessions” will establish as the top-grossing tour ever by a female artist.

“Although final numbers are not all in – Ray Waddell reports on Billboard.com – tour producer Arthur Fogel puts the tally at $193.7 million from 60 shows that drew nearly 1.2 million in paid attendance.

That gross narrowly puts Madonna over Cher’s benchmark of $192.5 million.

However, it took Cher an endurance-testing 273 shows between June 2002 and April 2005 to reach that mark on her marathon Farewell tour.

Madonna’s Confessions tour followed the same model of the $125 million-grossing re-Invention tour in 2004 and the $75 million-grossing Drowned World tour in 2001.

Rather than visit 100 global markets à la mega acts like the Rolling Stones and U2, Madonna opted to play multiple nights in a limited number of major international locales. The strategy has led to a staggering $400 million in ticket sales in just six years.”

Source: Billboard.com.