i asked here in a ticket shop in Germany---where I buy all my tix--they said it will be sold out very soon. (I asked for Cologne and Frankfurt)
the same answer here in the regional Newspaper,which sell tickets for Cologne and Hannover.

Sure, the rolling stones doesnt sell out stadiums in 2 hours, but i am sure thell sell more than 90% .

Havo, as i said on another thread, i don't believe conclusions which are based on the first day or the first week of public sales. Do you remember the same talk about the american leg of the tour?? "Detroit will be a desaster", "slow sales", "poor sales", "MSG not sold out yet", etc. But according to all the articles and the reviews, with a few exeptions the venues in US were full- packet or near it. Of course in Europe they have to fill big stadiums- as ever. But the calendar says now "December 2005"...

The real question is "how many", not "how fast". I'm sure the Stones will sell in Europe between 90% and 100%, even with these annoying ticket prices...


People drow comparisons between the speed of the tickets sales nowadays and the speed of the sales in 1990, 1995 or 1998. Incongruous comparisons, in my opinion. Now the tickets are much more expensive (unfortunately). A lot of fans are wiser: they are playing "games" with time and scalpers. Also, in many cases the speed of the ticket sales has to do with how huge the lust for seeing the Stones is. And the lust often is proportional to time: since 1994 the frenquency of the tours is very high: 4th round in 11 years. So a Stones concert isn't a "rare act" anymore. In these cases the speed of the sales is not a figure of popularity but a figure of eagerness (or a measure of how the crowds can affort the expensive tickets!): if this tour was the first after 8 or 12 years, every venue would be sell out after two weeks. But this tour is the first after just two years. The Stones will play to 4 million (maybe more) people during this tour. That's the number of 1981/82 tour, too. I think this is amazing, in 2005-06!!

Hi Havo,
I hope your sources are credible. My sources tell me ticket sales in Germany have been really poor so far. On the other hand, I am with stickydion and agree 100% with what he says in his post. Let's hope for the best!

Did the ticket sales go slow in France 1998 too? Maybe the World Cup is to blame.

JumpingKentFlash

Think the perfect sale will be when they don't sell out until the last day. Nail biting yes, but on the other hand the scalpers will suffer and learn a lesson.
Downside will be that the tickets was priced so high that fans suffered as well.

TE
Oslo

Why buy tickets from scalpers? It's very easy to buy them through proper channels. Scalpers won't make money this tour. Not because of high prices but because of large supply

JumpingKentFlash wrote:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Did the ticket sales go slow in France 1998 too? Maybe the World Cup is to >blame.


Yes indeed. They had to cancel a second gig in Paris while the sales were actually on . Now,tickets this year might be even lower than in 1998 from what I can read on the different sites that selling tix. But, we'll see. The worst is not the most certain.

stickydion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Havo, as i said on another thread, i don't believe
> conclusions which are based on the first day or
> the first week of public sales. Do you remember
> the same talk about the american leg of the tour??
> "Detroit will be a desaster", "slow sales", "poor
> sales", "MSG not sold out yet", etc. But according
> to all the articles and the reviews, with a few
> exeptions the venues in US were full- packet or
> near it. Of course in Europe they have to fill big
> stadiums- as ever. But the calendar says now
> "December 2005"...


Detroit WAS a disaster. There were a LOT of giveaways for that show. And while most venues were sold out or close to sold out in the end, the sales were definitely slow compared to previous tours. MSG did take a day or more to sell out - on previous tours, it would have been gone in minutes

As you correctly say, its only December, Most venues will end up having most of the tickets sold (although there will probably be few REAL sell outs) because these days they find lots of ways of getting rid of tickets and making a stadium look reasonably full

NO WAY!, see the tickets for Mexico or Argentina shows, no more tickets available!

Different kind of market, though, SeNdEr - plus they havent played those countries in 8 years and have decided to give their fans there LESS shows than usual (probably because they can make more money playing in the US)

Gazza wrote :
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>As you correctly say, its only December, Most venues will end up having most of >the tickets sold (although there will probably be few REAL sell outs) because >these days they find lots of ways of getting rid of tickets and making a >stadium look reasonably full.

I did not know about that marketing side. Suppose we gonna see a lot of that during this tour,i.e. UK and Germany. Today, we went in the park downtown Paris.
It was sunny, but cold. While walking I suddenly started singing to the heavy surprise of my family that great song from Bob Dylan I heard him sing with great conviction for nearly 10 mn in November : Desolation Road. I also thought that maybe The Stones should have done like him,i.e. play small arenas eventhough I am a staunch fervent of stadium gigs allowing the most to attend music that is by definition not dedicated to an elite. Shouldn't they have made any audience study beforehand. " Times, they are achangin'"

If ticket sales in Germany would be good you won't get any tickets after more than one week (incl. presales). You get tickets for every section for every venue. Even FOS was available this morning again (same game as during licks for FOS). A further indicator might be that Berlin isn't announced yet.

Pre-sales time lag should not be included from my own perspective. It counts for btw 5 - 2 %.

Fellows, here, in Greece, in these cases there is a strong spirit of temporization! "Don't do today whatever you can do tomorrow...". 1998, first day of sales, only 5,700 tickets sold. Two weeks before the show date (Sept, 16) only 50,000 tickets sold. But September 16, 79,466 tickets sold! By far the hugest audence ever, for a rock concert, here in Greece. (1989- Pink Floyd 65,000, 1997- U2 49,000, etc).


SeNdEr, Gazza, i cannot understand why the hell the Stones do not plan one more (atleast) stadium concert in Buenos Aires. Can you? Maybe something more at the end of the tour???

stickydion Wrote:
> SeNdEr, Gazza, i cannot understand why the hell
> the Stones do not plan one more (atleast) stadium
> concert in Buenos Aires. Can you?

yes. Money. South America simply isnt profitable enough because it takes a lot of money to transport the show down there and because the tickets are (compared to the US) very cheap. For all this crap about how much they love playing Buenos Aires (and remember they sold out FIVE stadium shows there in 1998...some of which went on sale just DAYS before they took place), when it comes down to it they'll go where the money is. Mexico is easier to get to, but even then they're not playing enough shows to satisfy the ticket demand as they could gross more playing an arena show in LA than they could playing a stadium in Mexico City.


Maybe something
> more at the end of the tour???

Doubt it. Once Europe is over, there might be a few American shows but thats about it.

Well Berlin went on sale today.
And all FOS tickets are sold out,
even if they cost a lot more than the rest of the field.
So what is the problem?

Bjornulf

yeah, i think tickets sales are much better the last days in germany.

Göteborg/Ullevi outsold/vollbesetzt at 12.00 today.

Ticket prices are too high ! And there are only stadion shows in Germany !!

Result up today:
- Hardcore Fans bought FOS and the best places (scalpers too)
- Therefore FOS is sold out


Marketing Result 1 in the next 3 month:
- They will try to sell tickets about special packages (sponsors etc.)
- Cheap transfer + hotel
- Ceap hanndy selling + Stones
- Cheap Internet + Stones
and so on ............

But this will not be enaugh and therefore

Marketing Result 1 in 4 month:
- There will be a very good second band on stage like AC/DC in 2003
I hope "ACDC" will come again or "Tote Hosen" or "Cream" or "ZZ Top" or

"football -soccer- friend Rod Stewart" ???

Marketing Result 1 in the next month:
- They will sell normal standing tickets about special packages (sponsors etc.)
much cheaper than today

Grüsse
Regards

Gerhard

- Die Gedanken sind frei .........

FOS aren't sold out. They are on sale from time to time. Got my missing Cologne FOS Sunday morning. Hannover FOS was on sale the same moment. I could imagine having sold out FOS only isn't enough, all other sections are still open to have.

If you are asking yourself where all the FOS are? Look at ebay :-(( Seems those are the only tickets which can be sold there by now.

Why do you think there are poor sales in Germany?

2002/3 only Munic Olympiahalle and Zirkus Krone were sold out in the first few days, but not really sold out, there were ticks all the way, right to the days events happens. All the other places never have been sold out.

But this is the right way to earn most money: First sell the stuff for a high price, create a little hype, sell more ticks for high prices, then start some other PR and at last, give away the little rest of ticks to the poor fans sitting on the fence.

This is the best working marketing and money-maschine.

Ok, they can sell out more stadium-shows by lower prices, but to earn the same money-result, the Stones would have to play double of concerts, too.

But the don't waist there time by doing this ... ;-)

I guess HighwireC is right. We continously underestimate the Stones management, headed up by Cohl, but in the end they always make the tours the top grossing act of the year, manage to play to an audience of 3.5+ mio people no matter at how extreme the ticketprices are, and they achieve to make most venues sold out or at least packed to capacities of 95%+.

Harm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why buy tickets from scalpers? It's very easy to
> buy them through proper channels. Scalpers won't
> make money this tour. Not because of high prices
> but because of large supply


The answer to this is really two-fold.

The reasons are that scalpers frequently over buy tickets based on a perceived demand for them and usually if you wait til the day of the show, these people get stuck with many extras, so it becomes a buyers market and you can save large amounts of money in buying your ticket from them..

The other advantage is that you don't have to spend your money in December for shows that won't take place for another 6-8 months. Things may change and perhaps you won't be able to make it to a show you purchased tickets for and instead of you being the one having to find a buyer, you have no worries.

Plus, once you see how stagnant the setlists will probably be, unlike those who bought months in advance for shows in North America, you can easily cut back your total amount of shows, if that's what you prefer, at no loss financially to you.

The one stadium show I saw, in Anaheim on November 4th, I bought my floor ticket (all seated) outside just after the opening act ended. I jumped the gun a little as I expected the Stones onstage earlier than they actually came on, and ended up paying $80 for a ticket that with service charges had cost the buyer almost $190. Had I waited longer, I may have got that same ticket or a similar one for even less. I then walked into the $450 section and watched the show from just off center in the 2nd section back from the stage.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-12-13 01:20 by Halup.