is it fair, or not fair, to adjust the grosses according to inflation? For instance, Madonna's Confessions Tour grossed $194.7 million but, in 2016 dollars, $228.54 million.

It shows how it would be popular today. Grossing 50 bucks in 1816 was a big deal. Today it would be a joke.

So yes, it's fair.

Compare numbers of the same time period with the same time period. Ticket inflation moved a lot faster with 8% in comparison to normal inflation like 2% that went down to 0% or negative (there are countries where you have to pay the bank for the safe storage of money on a savings account) nowadays.

i'd like to start off my post by saying that i don't think anyone on this forum is an economist, but lemme just say

no, u need to keep it where it's at. naturally, tours from most recent years are more and more likely to end up on the list due to inflation, but none of us understand the market structures / levels of demand properly to discern what impact they had on people actually BUYING the tickets

money was certainly more abundant and..... disposable to more people in the past, it's not necessarily that way anymore, and naturally that affects what kinds of / how many people are buying tickets in the first place