The revenue for Live Aid wasn't really from the ticket sales, it was from phone-in pledges for the charity fronted by Bob Geldof.
Tickets were only £5, but included a donation to the charity, making entry £35 in total.
The bulk of the money came from donations, on the day and following, and also from the DVD sales [much, much later I just realised, the DVD was 2004] - which were given special status and all the tax on them was also given to the charity.
The movie takes slight liberties when it claims that donations rose massively entirely due to Queen's 20 minutes on stage; though the details are incorrect, the notable brilliance of their set did elevate them in the eyes of the audience, live and the millions watching on TV.
You have to bear in mind that this was an unprecedented event. Nothing remotely like this had ever been done before.
Two major concerts, in London and Philadelphia. Live broadcast to the entire world, with a global audience never dreamed of before... and all in the days of analogue TV, no internet, no global communications network like we have now.
Pretty much everyone who was anyone was on it - Bowie, U2, The Who, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Beach Boys, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan... everybody wanted to be on it. Phil Collins even played at both gigs - he flew Concord to do it. Led Zeppelin even reformed to play it, their first gig since the death of John Bonham.
The acts all played for free.
It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time; an estimated audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations, watched the live broadcast, nearly 40% of the world population.
The emotional impact was colossal.
The money raised was stunning - estimated total £150,000,000.
The true story, rather than the movie version, was really that Bob Geldof got so emotionally intense he started swearing on Live daytime TV - in an era where you'd hardly hear this kind of language after 10pm.
Throughout the concerts, viewers were urged to donate money to the
Live Aid cause. Three hundred phone lines were manned by the BBC, so
that members of the public could make donations using their credit
cards. The phone number and an address that viewers could send cheques
to were repeated every twenty minutes.
Nearly seven hours into the concert in London, Bob Geldof enquired how
much money had been raised so far; he was told about £1.2 million. He
is said to have been sorely disappointed by the amount and marched to
the BBC commentary position. Pumped up further by a performance by
Queen which he later called "absolutely amazing", Geldof gave an
interview in which BBC presenter David Hepworth had attempted to
provide a postal address to which potential donations could be sent;
Geldof interrupted him in mid-flow and shouted "Fuck the address,
let's get the numbers". Although the phrase "give us your fucking
money" has passed into folklore, Geldof has stated that it was never
uttered. Private Eye magazine made great humorous capital out of
this outburst, emphasising Geldof's Irish accent which meant the
profanities were heard as "fock" or "focking". After the outburst,
donations increased to £300 per second.
No doubt Queen did play their part in that
Queen's twenty-one minute performance, which began at 6:41 pm, was voted the greatest live performance in the history of rock in a 2005 industry poll of more than 60 artists, journalists and music industry executives.
but I don't think they were singularly responsible for the uptick.
Quotes from Wikipedia - Live Aid
Some nice anecdotes with pictures from
RadioX - Was Live Aid the greatest gig ever? Or the most cringeworthy?
Ignore the click-bait title, the report is actually reasonably reverential, with the occasional poke, and some nice incidental facts.
