Originally posted by podiumboy:So we've all heard the tales of certain U.S. shows on the 2018 tour not being fully sold out, and upper sections behind the stage being curtained off. I was wondering if anybody had any insight to the individual attendances of some of those shows, and how many tickets were unsold?
Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]
Tales? Haha, it was far from being "tales". There were a good amount of shows that didn't sell out -not even close- and while photos don't lie (and I'll post a compilation here today) I don't think there's any way to know the precise magnitude of each individual debacle because attendance numbers aren't transparent and honest anymore - at least the ones that you can check out on Wikipedia, Billboard, etc.
Also, a simple look at the US itineraries from 2015 vs 2018 speaks volumes. In 2015 they sold easily Los Angeles x5 + San Jose x2, Montreal x4, Chicago x4, Boston x4 and NYC x8. Yeah NYC x8. And three years later they struggled to sell 2 San Jose + 2 Los Angeles, 2 Chicagos, 2 Washington and just 3 NYC? What a joke. Obviously having the JT30 tour (with its "overwhelming demand") in the middle hurt 2018's tickets sales badly, but that wasn't the only problem.
Originally posted by deanallison:A good way of comparing the figures is to look back at previous tours. Particularly with E&I you only need to look at I&E figures, a tour with the same stage set up so you would think the same maximum capacity. 5 shows in Chicago in 2015 averaged at 19k a show. In 2018 2 shows in Chicago averaged at 16k a show. For me the over saturation explanation only accounts for a small percentage of the lower sales. It was the pricing that was the main reason imo. People will point to the ticket prices going down significantly on show day or perhaps the week of the show even but I think by that point a lot of people wouldn’t have made the effort to alter their plans or having seen the initial prices when they first looked probably didn’t bother checking back. I would assume they lost out on the casual fans really. If they had priced E&I the same as I&E I think the attendance figures would have been similar.
Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]
Tales? Haha, it was far from being "tales". There were a good amount of shows that didn't sell out -not even close- and while photos don't lie (and I'll post a compilation here today) I don't think there's any way to know the precise magnitude of each individual debacle because attendance numbers aren't transparent and honest anymore - at least the ones that you can check out on Wikipedia, Billboard, etc.
Also, a simple look at the US itineraries from 2015 vs 2018 speaks volumes. In 2015 they sold easily Los Angeles x5 + San Jose x2, Montreal x4, Chicago x4, Boston x4 and NYC x8. Yeah NYC x8. And three years later they struggled to sell 2 San Jose + 2 Los Angeles, 2 Chicagos, 2 Washington and just 3 NYC? What a joke. Obviously having the JT30 tour (with its "overwhelming demand") in the middle hurt 2018's tickets sales badly, but that wasn't the only problem.
Originally posted by hoserama:[..]
2015 wasn't so rosy either. They had 8 shows booked for LA and Chicago but stopped at 5. Denver was a late add since they didn't sell all of the LA shows.
I loved the residency idea. Wish they had gone with the two setlist design but oh well. They needed a hit album/single, and SOI wasn't it.