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Only a few of the stadium shows have sold well. Stadiums like Fenway, Giants and Hartford have been able to get local corporations to pick up tickets (most likely for half of face). Anahiem was in terrible straits until Ameriquest took 10k of the tickets to hand out to their LA based employees. SBC2 has 17,000 tickets unsold, while SBC1 still has several thousand on hold. Detroit had sold 12,000 tickets last June. Cellar Door tried to get GM, Chrysler and Ford to pick up tickets - but they declined, the tickets are over priced and none of the people they would want to impress with Stones tickets are clamoring for them.

The arenas have fared better, but the first United Center show in January still has over 8,000 tickets unsold. Cohl had planned for five UC shows there in January, he wanted to do a whole Chicago week. No one can understand why he's added a second show.

Arenas in Portland, Salt Lake, Denver, Chicago, etc... have sold very poorly. The Vegas MGM sold very slow today, I've never seen that venue do so poorly on the TM general sale day.

It appears right now for Cohl to make a profit on the stadium tour, he needs to gross approximately $5 million per show to pay off the Stones, the tour costs, etc... He's not doing it. Which is why we've suddenly seen a new U.S. arena leg added after the South American dates. He's hoping the out of way cities chosen will make up for the losses on the stadium tour.

A $5 million gross for a show is staggering and it appears that is the minimum gross for the baseball parks that Cohl was hoping for. It sounds like a lot of money. Until you realize that Cohl probably has to pay the Stones a minimum of $1.5 million out of that and all the tour costs. Which includes two stadium stages, 127 trucks, a few hundred local union employees to put it up and take it down, a tour traveling crew of 250, a year of the Four Seasons and Marriotts for those 250, etc...

There's 15 people employed on the tour as chefs and caterers - including one guy whose job title is cooler tech. Yep, someone is getting a six figure income to be in charge of the tour's refrigerators and ice. Mick's girlfriend and her three assistants are employed by the tour. There's a milliner (hat designer) empolyed for Mick. There's an entourage coordinator and an entourage accountant, along with a tour accountant and merchandise accountant, which doesn't include an accounting firm. And then there's the cost of getting 250 employees plus the entourage from one city to the next, one country to the next.

Some of the opening bands are not working for free. Metallica is getting paid $100k for each show. A few others are getting $25k.

If you've seen the stage, you know it cost multiple millions to design and build it. The B2B bridge alone cost a million, the tram stage thingy has to have cost several million. And there's two stages. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the two stages cost $25 million or more.

As stadium tickets sales stand now, the Stones have probably sold approximately $60 million for eighteen shows. Cohl was probably hoping to gross over $100 million for stadia ticket sales. Since he's added the March leg, it appears $60 million doesn't have them out of the red for the stadium shows.

Anyway, to answer your question - Detroit is more the norm than the abnormal for this tour. The tickets were priced for corporate sales and in most cities, the corporations did not snap them up. Which means - tickets have been farmed out left and right to put bodies in the seats so the venues have some hope of making the guarantee through beer sales.

Detroit led the pack of people refusing to pay $4xx for a stadium field seat and $160 to be in a baseball park's stands with the stage in the outfield. Detroit has loyal Stones fans, but they aren't stupid. They know when they're being taken and they refused to buy, instead waiting for the tickets that would be papered out and for the parking lot sale an hour before the show.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-09-01 20:27 by roby.

sad - boy did Cohl blow this one. btw, it's hsterical to see folks try to re-sell tix still on places like ebay - nobody's biting and yet they keep tossing them out there at ridiculous prices.

ya i wouldn't want 2 b in cohl's shoes ,,hes takin it on the chin,,i would say so far no previous shows sold out ,,it must b killin him watchin the stones livin high on the hog & alot of it is comin out of his pocket,,that hat designer is laughin all the way 2 the bank 2,,

Should have done an arena tour

Indeed Donkey, an arena would be better and, at least for fans, much cooler!

Cheers,
Wuudy

soldier field-sold out
1st united center show-sold out
2nd show -upper level or worst of the expensive seats still available


ur info is incorrect

Even if this is all true (which I doubt), Cohl has done extremely well with the Stones since 1989. Maybe he just decided to keep pushing (tour frequency and ticket prices) to the breaking point by design. I wouldn't worry that he'll be on the dole even if this tour is a financial disaster.

Anyway, I was at Fenway 1 and Hartford. Admittedly these are smaller stadiums, but they were jammed. Also, I have been checking TM for many shows around the country. Nothing available for most. I agree with J.J. Flash. I think the gloom and doom info is flawed.

jj flash,, those shows didn't happen yet,, many lies this tour so dont beleive what u hear or read ,,

The only remedy is to lower ticket prices so the average working man could afford to go! I wonder if they'll be playing some smaller centers in Europe similar to Moncton/Ottawa that they've never played before which may draw huge crowds?

Last tour in north america was exactly 50 shows including 8 "clubs".
This time it will be more than 55 shows, the smallest (Baltimore) for 10000.
Even if some tickets are unsold it's not a bust.

While there may be some truth in this report, some parts of it are just illogical. The statement about the Anaheim show being in terrible straits makes no sense to me. I went onto Ticketmaster the minute this show went on sale and like with most cities, all the best tickets were gone immediately and I was only bringing up seats high in the stands. People were looking on that day to buy good seats, so why would Cohl hold out 10,000 seats from the public sale which he could have otherwise have sold on the day of sale and then only be able to unload them to Ameriquest? I don't doubt that there were 10,000 held out for them, but this arrangement obviously would have been made prior to the public sale, thus it was not a case of Ameriquest bailing out the Anaheim show.

I'm sure they probably did approach corporations prior to the public sale and try to sell large blocks of tickets, but I'm sure these tickets would have had to have been payed for prior to the public sale, or they would have made them available for the public sale.

If Ticketmaster shows that a show is sold out, you cannot blame supposed poor sales on the public who is trying to buy tickets but is told they are no longer available.

Why does anyone care if Cohl loses money?

I don't think he is as stupid as everyone here claims.

He has also made plenty off U2 this year.

mayb cause stones tics r $450.00 for front row,,ive seen the show & that price is 2 high IMO

Hello all - new member and 1st post. Found this site looking for reviews of the concert at Comerica Park.

I was at the show in Detroit last night and I have to agree with the first post. Although the seats in Comerica Park were filled, with the exception of the really bad views, a lot of the tickets were given away.

All Detroit Red Wing season ticket holders were offerred two free tickets to the concert, face value of $95 each, as an incentive to renew their hockey ticket subscriptions for the upcoming season. The Red Wings and Tigers (Comerica Park) are owned by the same individual (Mike Illitch) so the connection is obvious. The distribution of the free tickets was botched and a last minute e-mail was sent stating that if you hadn't received your free tickets, just show up at will call with your Red Wings account # and get two more. No telling how many extra - extra free tickets were passed out.

I was at Fenway 1 & 2. Lots of empty $450 floor seats empty.... They really blew it this time with just too high ticket prices. In addition there are just too many strange ways to get tickets. Pre-pre fan club sale, pre fan-club sale, AMEX pre sale, Red Sox pre sale, public sale, post sale and what ever sale. Of the 35.000 tickets for Fenway, probably not more that one third was ever offered through TM sales. Lots of people ended up with no tickets on public sale, including myself. I was in on TM with broadband connections and together with fellow Vikings we used three computers. We did not get one single ticket on public sale. Reason being Cohl holding back lots of tickets and giving them out through other sources.

Jan Richards
www.stonesvikings.com

Noticed that the Shidoobee post claimed most opening acts are paid $25,000 or nothing! Metallica is supposedly the exception, getting $100,000. These numbers all sound pretty ridiculous to me. Pearl Jam, Wilco, Beck, get $25,000 or less to open-up??? Anybody know anything about how much openers get paid?

Karl



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-09-01 23:22 by KSIE.

It all depends on who the opener is. Some dont get paid at all.

"Only a few of the stadium shows have sold well...."
"Detroit had sold 12,000 tickets last June..."

To me the only important element is every venue's picture. Every venue including Detroit was packed. Every concert from the tour's begining was stadium concert.

"The arenas have fared better, but the first United Center show in January still has over 8,000 tickets unsold."

So what? In January!? The scalpers and the fans are playing their game
with the time.

I say "every venue including Detroit was packed" because read the reports and the posts. I don't know if a stadium was "only" 99% fill but in that case what is changing?

Amazing to see how much junk is written about the sales of tickets.....

People on this board believing they are the experts.... sales are bad, lots of unsold tickets, etc..... when the reality is: Mots tickets sold out.....

True: Ticket prices are high

But: Stones doesn't want to make a 100 arena tour in US - they are not capeable to do this many shows anymore..... realize it: they are older guys, who can not tour every night for years.....

Now this says something but not alot. Was not Detroit one of the worst selling shows on the whole tour? Is that wrong? I was there last night and very filled. No noticable gaps at least from the stage. Pepole are buying them. If Detroit is one of the poor sellers then it doesnt look we are not getting empty stadiums.

Arena Tour!! What are you crazy. Maybe you should follow U2. We are talking little crap like that. Stadium shows is the stones thing. I'll stop.

~~TOM

So Far I read that every stadium is packed, which is really all I worry about as a fan vis a vis the excitement. How it gets packed is up to people who CHOOSE the entertainment business say VS medicine as did I for a career. I agree that tickets sales this time have been confusing and frustrating.

I must also say that one of THE most frustrating things as an MD is to try and treat a patient who is a graduate of "The National Enquirer School of Medicine." Sincere and studious efforts by lay people to interpret information outside of their sphere of knowledge can lead to ridciulously erroneous assumptions.

The Stones have been at the top of the enetertainment game for four decades. Cohl is no idiot.We may not agree with what either is doing, but let's concede, since most of us have never even tried to fill up a high school auditorium for a local production, THEY ARE THE EXPERTS, not us.

On another note, I cannot figure out why we would all personalize any of this as something we should worry about! Go to the shows that you want to go to and can afford and enjoy them, leave the business worries to the guys that are getting paid!

If the the Stones filled the "difficult" (all of us know the reasons) stadium of Detroit, they will fill every venue. The tour is successful, the nagging is meanless..

well, despite the economics; I hope it keeps that way in Europe > much easier to purchase tix...;-)

I managed to buy the tix for both Fenway at box office, before the shows. There were some really good seats left, I only interested in A3/4 or B3/4, and those kind of tickets were sold only in the box office. Although I met many scalpers, especially on the 2nd night, but the best ticket they had was A2, and they had a lot of c or upper levels.
For Hartford there were really a lot of tickets on the market as well as at the box office. I bought a really excellent seat for $100 from a scalper, and the face was over $400, so it was a good deal.

Correct me if i am wrong but dident the residents around twickenham get so many free tickets due to the noise factor?.

Wheres all these 'free' tickets when you want one?.

it's been stated by jagger before in interviews i've read that it takes over half the tour to be completed before they've even broken even...they KNOW they'll have made millions by tour's end..they wouldn't have toured again if they didn't KNOW what the outcome was going to bring to them....every tour starts out in the hole for national acts..nature of the business for a tour of this scale

Tour Expenses you forgot....

Keith's personal dessert chef....no joke.

they put on a million dollar show thats why the tickets are so expensive!!

micks hat designer,,whats his take $$$$$$$$