1. 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?

    For example, I was at the 2nd Chicago show, which had a big ugly black curtain hanging in the upper rear sections. According to Billboard, the 2018 Chicago shows had 32,000ish in attendance. I know the first Chicago show did not have any seats blocked off. I also know from past tours that the United Center holds about 19,000. So does that mean the 2nd show had roughly 13,000 there?

    I'm just wondering if anybody has any insight into this. I know there were some others besides Chicago. St. Louis, San Jose, etc. Also, this curtaining off sections behind the stage wasn't new to U2 in 2018. In fact, several US shows had this very same thing done during the Elevation Tour, including the shows I went to in Columbus and Indianapolis. In the case of 2018, I blame ridiculously high prices combined with oversaturation.
  2. Artists would never go for it, and promoters would think it is insane, but they would be better off auctioning off 1000 or so seats(while saving a few cheaper good seats for fan clubs, etc), and just making 15,000 or so seats as low as $10 to $50. That way, they could make a ton off of the die hards, and the rich, and have a full house. Bands who take a cut off of food, parking, etc would make MORE money. But greed gets in the way of innovation.
  3. I was at the 2018 Duluth, GA show, and there were some upper sections closed, but it was at least 90% full. U2 did not appear in the south for the SOI part of the tour, so many had not seen them in a bit, though Joshua Tree 2017 may have hurt them in this regard.
  4. 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?
    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.
  5. 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.
    I think the attendance numbers are good, it's the capacity numbers that I question. Too easy for a band to say "oh those seats won't get a full view, we need to move them and close the section" and then the seat isn't counted, and most venues aren't likely going to argue with Live Nation when they are told to do that if they want to continue getting tours through. Lots of reports in 2018 of people showing up to find out their seats had been moved...
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
    There was another factor too...the verified fan thing.

    Some casual fans tried to get verified and failed...and didn't really try again. Others? Didn't know they had to get verified and went into the ticket sale and didn't know how to buy tickets, or to get verified. So just gave up on it. There were some shows which were requiring verified fan sign up for weeks after tickets went on sale.

    You make things too difficult to buy and people just walk away from it. A lot of people don't pay much attention to things online, and just want to pop on at 9am and buy a ticket without registering etc. I'm sure it hurt the first leg of the tour. (Especially when you have an error in your algorithm which blocks a number of fans from being able to buy...)
  8. One thing, not splitting hairs, but U2 did 5 shows in NYC, not 3. Newark and Uniondale may not be MSG, but they are the same metro area.

    Yeah think the list of shows that had curtained off areas is St. Louis, San Jose 2, Las Vegas 2, Omaha, Chicago 2, Philadelphia 2 and Washington DC 2. 7 of them. There were probably that many if not more Elevation shows that had either the rear upper level, or the entire rear stage area curtained off. IMO, rear stage seats should be like $20... the band very rarely turn around.
  9. 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.
    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.
  10. 2015 > 2018
  11. 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.
    And on that note, at least the 2nd Denver show had curtained off areas as well in the upper rear. There’s really no excuse for that. Prices were too damn high, and they had to move people from the cheap seats to fill out the closer, more expensive seats.

    In Chicago 2 2018 I had tickets in the $150 range. I got to my section and they offered us tickets in the 300+ area. So I ended up basically right next to adams side of the stage. It was like watching him play in my living room!!
  12. The tone of some of these posts is odd, almost like the bands inability to sell out certain shows brings people some sort of weird joy?