Just curious to understand how it all works really, but how come when a tour itinerary is put together it is that 90 percent of shows are confirmed when the tour itinerary is announced, but that there always seems to be this small handful of shows that only get confirmed very very late in the day ? Why ? What are the problems involved, or the reasons behind this happening ? At the moment for example, we've had this wrangling over Dublin which appears just recently to have resulted in the show not even happening at all, these two possibilities for 16th August in Spain, Lyon, and so on ? What goes on ?

To make it simple, local promoters are buying concerts to the Stones.
The band gets paid, wether the shows are sold out or not, the risk being carried by the promoter.

In the case of France, Paris 1 is sold out, Paris 2 still has aroud 5,000 unsold tickets, and Nice almost 8,000 tickets remaining.

The promoter needs to sell at least 85 or 90% of the tickets to start making money, that's why they sometimes hesitate.
As long as Paris 2 and nice aren't sold out, no Lyon. And since these shows are selling pretty slowly, my guess is that they won't take the risk of losing money because of a 4th show. Positive thing is that the Stones may offer a smaller indoor show to their devoted french fans ;o)

Ok, that'll do me for an explanation. Thanks. Are there REALLY still 8000 unsold tickets for Nice ? Bloody hell, I would have thought that would sell really well. I'm surprised.

Just read BV's post in another thread somewhere saying that the moment he heard they were looking at I think it was Zaragosa in Spain on 16th August, he suspected the Dublin show earmarked for the 18th would be in trouble. So now that we KNOW the Dublin show is off, does this improve the chances of another Spanish show after Valladolid on the 14th ?