Midnight Toker Wrote:
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> Robbie Williams? Gimme a break. So he sells out in
> Europe. He aint squat in the US.

so what? Europe is a bigger market anyway in terms of population.

Theres several acts who do well in one market and dont in another.

Comparing Robbie
> Williams to the Stones?

dont think anyone actually IS, musically anyway



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-12-09 17:35 by Gazza.

heartbreaker ron Wrote:
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> Must say that Robbie does a lot of promotion for
> his new album and tour. Saw him in several Dutch
> tv shows/programs, doing interviews and singing
> songs from his new album (and all the time
> different ones). At least he's proud on a new
> album.

Yep, his promotion is very strong. I always hated the Stones promtotion. Are they to lazy to pormote a single, an album or a tour properly? Do they think they become big sellers with relying on word-of-mouth advertising?
If they did more coverage of what they are releasing they could be a lot more successful nowadays.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-12-09 17:38 by ThatsWhatISay.

"The ONLY thing thats "ruining sales" of the Stones tour is the silly ticket prices they're demanding "

Gazza, do you really think this tour is ruined. Maybe in Germany, perhaps in Holland. But that is not definitive for this country. Additional dates may be brought in. Are you that much pessimistic due poor sales in UK, apart Wembley I

I wouldnt go as far to say it is..obviously...I was quoting ThatsWhatIsay's assertion that it could be.

I do think they'll struggle with slow sales in several markets though.

Maybe I was using the wrong word by saying "ruining". I just wanted to say, as someone did before, that many people go and see RW at affordable prices rather than the Stones at kingsize prices. That's were I saw the connection between RW and Stones. But even if the Stones would have reasonable prized tickets I think RW would still interfere with them.

Normally I thought having the world championships in Germany next year will ruin any tour. Don't know how RW is doing his sell outs.

On the other hand I haven't seen any Stones advertisement in newspapers or on TV. In North-Germany radio station NDR2 was doing some kind of promotion. You had to find out what's wrong in a STones story which went this way: ....there first album A Hard Days Night ...

Funny.....and great. Macca must have swallowed his pint of beer straightfwd. But does he drink beer. Nice fellow, though

ThatsWhatISay Wrote:
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> Maybe I was using the wrong word by saying
> "ruining". I just wanted to say, as someone did
> before, that many people go and see RW at
> affordable prices rather than the Stones at
> kingsize prices. That's were I saw the connection
> between RW and Stones. But even if the Stones
> would have reasonable prized tickets I think RW
> would still interfere with them.


fair enough. and if the prices were reasonable theyd have a different and younger type of audience too

lol, I found a chart in the EU where ABB is higher positioned than RW's album: in Greece lol. ABB is #8, 11 weeks in the charts, RW is #20!

"Younger types of audience too.". Gazza, you are a 200 % right. I take the example of Stade de France. No more seats available ( 60,000). There should be roughly 15,000 FOS still on, i.e.people between 25 - 35 have deserted the Stones show. You cannot forever reverse that trend, except if we had a blockbuster in ABB, like SMU

Yes, Robbie Williams... Something like Osmond Brothers or David Cassidy in early 70s...

Yes, he is the most attractive live act in Europe now. As Bruce Springsteen in USA is and as the Stones worldwide are. Do you think RW can attract 4 + million people worldwide in his concerts? I don't think so. The Stones will do it, even with these damned high ticket prices. Even the fact that this is the 4th Stones tour in he last 11 years. With cheaper ticket prices they could easily attract atleast 1.5 million people more. I love them, but i hate their policy...

Anyway, mark it. At the end of all the tours, we will have (WORLDWIDE): #1 Stones, #2 U2. I mean the figure "tickets sold" of course. About grosses, no question!!..

Good point. It unreal how many people the Stones play to each tour. The most amazing figures are from SW/UJ, VL and B2B tour. 6,25 mio, 6,6 mio and 5,7 mio. Approx. 18,5 mio people with only 3 tours. I doubt anyone will ever top that.
And the ticket prices were always high at that time, of course not in comparison to the ABB tour rip-off prices. But Stones concerts were always a very expensive experience with people moaning about the prices.

ThatsWhatISay, i think the real numbers are:

SW/UJ 6m, VL 7.5m, B2B - NS 5.7m, LT 3.5m. Near 23m people since 1989!

SW/UJ was the first tour after a huge break of 7 years. Huge hype. Everywhere, everyone ...lust for seeing them! A new big market, a new "virgin" place on the touring map: Japan, first time (about 500,000 people at the concerts). VL, a tour after a notable time. Four years. One more new huge place on the map: South America (800,000 people).

SINCE 1997...

... we have a high incidence of tours. The frequency of their rounds (1997-1999, 2002-03 and now 2005-06) reminds a bit of what was happening during the seventies but then the Stones were playing on every tour to 400,000, 500,000 or 800,000 people, not more.

... we have not NEW huge places on the touring map.

... we have ticket prices which go up again and again (unfortunatelly)

SO we have not people who want to see "a rare act", because they aren't a rare act anymore. They do tours very often. The tickets are expensive. But despite these factors about 4 million people will go to see them, a bit more than the total number of the 1981/82 tour (3.5m). Now, in 2005. After 43 years of career. After having attract 23m people since 1989. And some fans compare them with Robbie Williams!!

7.5 mio. sounds even better. I just copied and pasted figures from georgelicks.

Btw, this time they would have been clever to say at least this would be their last huge stadium tour. This would have make sells a lot easier.


Stones Tours Attendance:
- 1989/90 - Steel Wheels 6.250.000
(3.200.000 US, 2.550.000 Europe, 500.000 Japan)

- 1994/95 - Voodoo Lounge 6.570.000
(2.650.000 US, 2.630.000 Europe, 952,000 South America/Africa, 337.000 Australia/New Zealand)

- 1997/99 - Bridges To Babylon 5.700.000
(2.500.000 US, 2.500.000 Europe, 700,000 South America/Japan)

- 2002/03 - Licks Tour 3.460.000
(1.507,000 US, 1.625.000 Europe, 333.000 Asia/Australia)



All official numbers:
Steel Wheels from Fortune
Voodoo Lounge and Bridges To Babylon from Billboard boxscore
Licks Tour from Billboard and Live Licks CD.


I have aprox. numbers for the 81-82 tour too (not 100% official):
1981: 2.000.000 attendance, $52.000.000 gross
1982: 2.000.000 attendance, $40.000.000 gross ($90.000.000 for the tour)


Tour Gross (official):
1989: $98.000.000
1990: $50.000.000 ($148.000.000 total)

1994: $121.000.000
1995: $199.000.000 ($320.000.000 total)

1997: $89.000.000
1998: $140.000.000
1999: $67.000.000 (US) / $25.000.000 (Europe)
Total: $320.000.000 (Billboard) *
* Other sources (Rolling Stone) said that the tour grossed $345 million.

2002: $87.900.000
2003: $211.600.000 ($299.500.000 total)



The Grossing U.S.A. Concert Tours of All-Time:
(single-year statistics, up to Dec. 2004)

1. The Rolling Stones (1994, 60 shows) $121,200,000.
2. Bruce Springsteen (2003, 47 shows) $115,900,000.
3. U2 (2001, 80 shows) $109,700,000.
4. Pink Floyd (1994, 59 shows) $103,500,000.
5. Paul McCartney (2002, 53 shows) $103,300,000.
6. The Rolling Stones (1989, 60 shows) $98,000,000
7. The Rolling Stones (1997, 33 shows) $89,300,000.
8. The Rolling Stones (2002, 34 shows) $87,900,000.

B2B is already 10 years old. Licks was 3.5 millions . I did not include South-America, though. But nothing from Brazil, Chile and other countries.
I don't know for U2 2005/2006 : 4 < x < 5 millions without SAmerica. I think ABB will be far from the low figures due to slow sales in Europe. France did not sell out Paris and Nice on that first day of public sales. Estimates are of 80 % full capacity, which means 100,OOO audience compare to 160,000 in Licks Tour, same for B2B, and 210,000 for VL and UJ. So, Half of potential for this last world tour.. U2 this year in France : 270,000.

ThatsWhatISay wrote: "lol, I found a chart in the EU where ABB is higher positioned than RW's album: in Greece lol. ABB is #8, 11 weeks in the charts, RW is #20!"

ThatsWhatISay, here in Greece we have two charts. The big, mixted chart and the international chart. You mention the intermational chart: Yes, the Stones are #8 (peak position #1, of course) and RW is #20 (pp #2). On the mixted chart now the Stones are at #26 (pp #3) and RW at #44 (pp #8). As you see the Stones are selling clearly better than him in Greece.

"7.5 mio. sounds even better"

For sure, but you have rihgt TWIS. Yes, the real number is 6.570.000.

I think I'll pick up the guitar tabs for all of Robbie's material. NOT! Will someone please smack me in the head with a hammer. Take you beach blanket be bop and get outta here.

phd, to be honest i cannot understand how safe the conclusions which are coming from the first day or the first week of public sales could be. I remember the same talk about the american leg of the tour: "Detroit will be a desaster", "poor and slow sales", "MSG not sold out yet, what a shame", etc. But as i have seen reading a lot of articles and reviews, with a few exeptions (Anaheim for example) the venues were full- packet or near it. Yes, in Europe they have to fill big stadiums- as ever. But we are talking about the summer of 2006 and now is December 2005.
Greece, 1998, Olympic Stadium of Athens: 79,466 tickets sold. On the first day of public sales less than 6,000 tickets had gone.

He came to Houston a few years ago... I think he sold like 1500 tickets. I think the reason, sad for him, is that his previous group didn't take off in the U.S.
He has obviously built up a foundation from them. Hard to get started anywhere as a solo artist when nobody knew who you were soloing from.
Does he do original material or covers? I saw him on a cable broadcast and he did this 15 minute medley of cover tunes.

Yes you are right. We all panic too much I guess. On the latter tours there was never
a rush demand for the Stones tickets. By now people know that there is no need to buy Stones tickets in the first hour of the first public sales day. This time ticket prices make it a bit tricky of course, but let's see and wait. If all else fails the Stones have to cut down the ticket prices to fill the venues.
But Germany always had a great Stones support and I'm confident when the summer approaches many people can't withstand to see them. :-)
Lot's of potential people even might not know that the European leg had been announced. The parents of one my friends adore the Stones and have seen them live for decades. However I had to tell them that the concerts are already on sale. They didn't know it. Media coverage is missing. Robbie is all around at that time. Either is it "Tripping" or "Advertising Space" or another "Robbie Special" or tomorrow's RW appearance at the German "Wetten, Dass..." show (12+mio viewers). The Stones can't keep up with this kind of promotion.

harlito1969 Wrote:
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> He came to Houston a few years ago... I think he
> sold like 1500 tickets. I think the reason, sad
> for him, is that his previous group didn't take
> off in the U.S.
> He has obviously built up a foundation from them.
> Hard to get started anywhere as a solo artist when
> nobody knew who you were soloing from.
> Does he do original material or covers? I saw him
> on a cable broadcast and he did this 15 minute
> medley of cover tunes.


RW covers only a few tunes. It's mainly original material, but always in cooperation with a talented song writer (well, the one from the last album sucked).
Just be happy RW is not popular in the US. It has nothing to do with his Take That past, his music is simply not American style. The very last thing you would think of when listening to his songs is that this is US style.

Robbie is sexy.

The Stones had the same audience ( Girls) long time ago (not at the Marquee of course). This audience brought them up. Charts. The Boys joined later. And never forget, the whole thing startet in England. The first US tour was.... not a big selling thing..

So let us girls have fun to see Robbie on stage. He tried to make an album without ironic texts to sell more in the US. But ...... LOL He is a great entertainer. And we don't have so many of them these days. But nobody can compare him with the stones. It's just fun. On a very high level.

(ööhm Robbie ist halt eine andere Baustelle.)

Kind of like the Cliff Richard of this generation.

Who is Cliff Richard?

trainarollin Wrote:
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> Who is Cliff Richard?


You're kidding right? He actually was knighted!

www.cliffrichard.org

I'm in the USA, feel sorry for us...Gwen Stefani and the Republican Lie Machine rule the airwaves.

Woulnt even like to see him as aroady, he s just no match.

Stickydion. I am not pessimistic generally speaking. Now, in Fance, there has been a lot of adds on radios and in the streets starting two weeks ago. The tickets are available to GP in the monster wholesalers, i.e. not only ticketnet.
Stones audience is btw 45/50 age. I agree they do not rush like younger audience would for U2. I took it as a simple indicator to predict if additonnal shows will be in or if somme "rumoured or probably" shows in BV list colud be confirmed or cancelled. Today is Saturday, people in France are rushing to the stores to buy Xmas presents. We'll see if Paris or Nice will be filled out. Will they have the money left. Normally as for Licks, it had been the case.

I think that Robbie is the best ticket seller in Europe. But it's popular pop so of course he is. Not that I like his music, but he seems to be a good entertainer too. For that kind of music that is.

But I'd pick a rock show any day to this whipped-cream lad.

JumpingKentFlash