>> That $100 only gets you to buy tickets to one venue <<
hm. maybe part of the idea is that - eek, i'm actually afraid to say this out in public! but maybe from the point of view of the performers, the phenomenon of people attending more than a couple of shows per tour isn't necessarily a dream come true. i experience a tiny-scale version of something like that in my work, and while it's very touching when someone likes what i do enough to come back, it can be a major drag when the same faces turn up repeatedly for the same thing and then radiate disappointment that it's not all different. but it's not supposed to be all different - it's the same damn thing they've chosen to come back to see again!
reading the various Stones boards, it's hard not to notice that some people attend multiple Stones shows per tour and get great joy out of it, which is wonderful; that some people can't afford to do that, so they get great joy out of one or two gigs, which is also wonderful; and that there's also a sector of people who attend multiple shows and then complain about being bored with what the Stones do. that puzzles me a lot. it's like going to a play five times and complaining that the plot's the same each time. the Stones seemed to be going out of their way to vary the set lists on the Licks tour, and a lot of people still felt/feel it wasn't varied enough - which, if you think about it from the artists' point of view, could be a little ... tiresome. so maybe part of the message Stones Inc. is emanating is exactly what you're reading: think twice before rushing to attend so many shows.
the odd thing is that it used to be standard for set lists to remain constant, or nearly constant, throughout the whole tour, and no one complained about it. i really wonder why people's expectations have changed so much. is it that the tours now last so much longer than they used to, which means the artists start varying the set lists for their own reasons, and then the public started (as it were) demanding it? the proliferation of easily-available bootlegs contributing to the "heard it all already" syndrome? is there any way to blame it on MTV?
no wait - we can always blame it on the Stones. :E
"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith