Originally posted by popmarter:Maybe they should have done an Elton John on it by pretending it's a farewell tour ,the guy turned round and said he wants to spend more time with his kids then announces a 3 year world tour (note to Elt they will probably have moved out by the time it finishes)
I noticed that he's performing concerts in Australia over the entire summer, from December until March. I think it might be just about unheard of to have a major artist spend so much time in Oz. Originally posted by podiumboy:
Since you mention Houston, I'll just focus on that. U2 selling 47,000 and Taylor selling 53,000 in the same venue is splitting hairs in the scheme of things. Not enough of a difference to really be a big deal. Taylor also had a seating configuration that allowed more seats to be sold to the sides of the stage. Guns n Roses sold 49,000 there. Metallica sold 46,000. Beyonce 43,000. U2 were pretty much in line with other shows at that particular stadium. It's true, U2 are not as big as Taylor Swift in the US... but they blow her away everywhere else. And U2 still made almost $6 million off that Houston show... THAT is the number that will prompt them to return to Houston again.
The only Northern American U2 shows in 2017 that were disappointing sales wise were Pittsburgh (41,000, $4.2m), Buffalo (41,000, $4.2m), Kansas City (39,000, $4.2m), New Orleans (34,000, $3.8m), and the St. Louis show that was cancelled I heard had roughly 35-40,000 tickets sold. Even those aren't total disasters either. Of those, only Pittsburgh was undersold to the point that they had to tarp off sections and move people around. Not many other artists could sell 39,000 tickets in Kansas City, or 41,000 in Buffalo. GnR sold 40,000 in KC, so the same. And they sold only 32,000 in Buffalo, same stadium. My point is that the concert industry is different now. Less emphasis is put on sellouts, and more on earning maximum dollars.
By the time of the shows, all of these shows will be sold out or close to it, with the exception of Auckland 2. Even the great Taylor Swift only managed to do 1 show at Mt. Smart Stadium last year, with only 35,000 in attendance. U2 are still one of the largest drawing acts in the world... they're just no longer the largest.
Originally posted by ddarroch:[..]
Here's a screen shot I took from the Pittsburgh show you mentioned. Unfortunately I didn't take one zoomed in to show what each section looked like, but I can assure everyone it didn't look pretty.
These seats were all reduced to $35! Some from much, much more than this. Some were re-labelled as having "restricted views". These same seats weren't called restricted view in cities with higher demand.
[image]
I'm sure they sold quite a few of these seats in the end. But only because they were bargain basement prices!
I'm happy to see some $35 seats at the shows. Giving those who really can't afford a great seat the opportunity to get in the venue. This was especially true for 360, where I considered the behind the stage seats to be great value.
But I'd rather not see very large swathes of seats reduced to these prices, just before show time. All because the original prices were just too damn high. This really screws their most loyal fans over, when you see somebody sitting beside you paying under a quarter of what you paid.
I'm happy for a bit of dynamic pricing. But starting off with prices at exorbitant levels, then panicking at the last minute & reducing them to bargain basement levels doesn't help anyone (except for some very happy casual fans). I wish tickets would start of at more sensible levels, then have mild reductions through the months leading up to the show, if things aren't going well. Then sure, reduce the remaining FEW to $35 or give them away to charities, come show time.
As I've mentioned before, most venues have never had CAT 4 seats available (only GA's). So it's been a HUGE jump from the few $60 seats (which sold out nearly instantly), to tickets that are $190! This is too much for many average fans, especially as these seats are quite poorly located in these very large venues.
I think it would have been fairer to change some of the poorer CAT 3 seats ($190) to CAT 4 ($130). It may have made financial sense too. Hopefully it occurs, & not at the last minute, in a panic when there's still tonnes of seats left.
Originally posted by deanallison:A lot of the North American shows didn’t sell too well at all in 2017, if you look on Wikipedia even though it appears every show was a sell out you only need to compare to what the real capacity of the venues were to see a lot of shows had thousands of tickets unsold. The NRG stadium in Houston for example holds 80,000 for concerts yet sold just over 47,000 tickets. Edit: 80k is a massive exaggeration on Wikipedia’s part that was at a rodeo event where all stands were available a Taylor swift concert however did sell 53,800 tickets, there’s plenty of other examples similar or worse to this. They have outsold plenty of other big artists playing in the same venues though to be fair so it’s all relative.
Originally posted by Blue_Room:[..]
Well, if you read my post, I NEVER said sold out. I said MOST of the N. American shows sold very well. In fact, most did. My post was in response to U2 will learn their lesson playing to a half empty stadium. Point being, no they wont. That will do no good at all in fact.
Moving on.
Originally posted by deanallison:[..]
I thought everyone had already moved on last night.
Originally posted by Blue_Room:[..]
I wasn't here last night and just saw your post.
Originally posted by deanallison:[..]
Fair enough but i did post a few other comments after that one and never stated you said the shows were sold out. I accepted that my original comment that a lot of the North American shows didn’t sell too well was harsh and acknowledged it was just a few that didn’t sell too well and that a few of the ones that didn’t sell out still achieved decent enough sales.
Fair enough. 