Picked this up in hard copy in London the other day and thought it would make an interesting post. Evidently, lots of acts are having trouble with empty seats. Plexi



From The Times June 28, 2007

Megastars play to empty seats after fans balk at ticket prices



Charles Bremner in Paris and James Bone
Some of the most enduring names in popular music are suffering a European backlash from fans refusing to pay inflated prices for live concerts.

Sir Elton John, George Michael and The Who have all cancelled dates at big venues, while the Rolling Stones and Barbra Streisand have played before tracts of empty seats.

The trend, fuelled by access to music on the internet, has been stark in a summer awash with high-priced concerts by Anglo-American rock and pop dinosaurs.

Ticket prices to see top US and British acts have soared in recent years, driven by what economists have identified as “The Bowie Theory”. Named after David Bowie, one of the first to issue a warning about the impact of online file sharing and copying, it suggests that bands who used to keep concert prices low to help to sell albums and generate royalties now regard live events as the best way to make money.

But managers and promoters appear to have misjudged the market. Barbra Streisand sang in France on Tuesday for the first and supposedly last time in her half-century career. Yet 3,000 seats were empty in the Paris Bercy stadium. The top Paris prices were €582 euros (£390).

The Stones played to a thinly populated Stade de France in Paris this month, and Sir Elton cancelled a planned Paris mega-show with seats at €750 last February and replaced it with a gig at the Paris Zenith at €150.

An appearance by the Stones in Werchter, Belgium, this month, sold only 33,000 of the 70,000 places. George Michael and The Who abandoned plans to sing at the same venue and opted for a Belgian hall. “The agents and managers of these big commercial machines that operate on a planetary scale do not believe that they have to adapt their prices to local markets,” said Belgium’s Trends magazine.

The high prices of Streisand’s brief European comeback, which opened in Zurich last week, have caused grumbling, mediocre sales and some cancellations. Her planned shows in Rome and Nice were called off, officially for technical reasons, after consumer groups campaigned against the prices. The Paris promoters upgraded 600 people from the “cheapest”, €112 behind-the-stage seats to fill empty rows for Streisand’s single French concert.

Britain is the exception to the fans’ revolt in a summer during which Genesis, the Police and Paul McCartney are also touring. Most seats at Streisand’s London appearances next month start at £100 and have sold well.

Her loyal army of British fans will fill Manchester’s MEN Arena on July 10 and the O2 Arena, formerly the Millennium Dome, for three nights from July 18. British prices are the costliest in Europe, with seats up to £825.

Streisand made $95 million (£47.5 million) when she toured the United States with an identical show in recent months. US prices have risen steeply but are below those demanded in Europe.

The promoters defend the charges, pointing to the huge costs of such things as Streisand’s 58-piece orchestra. French impresarios also complain about the big charges imposed by the state on live productions to finance generous welfare schemes for “resting” performers and technicians.

But the chief reason is that the artists are recouping income lost from the big decline in CD sales in recent years, say insiders. “Greedy artists are recovering what they lose with downloading,” said Philippe Manoeuvre, the editor of the French magazine Rock and Folk. “France is No 1 in Europe when it comes to free copying. The artists have lost 40 per cent of their revenue in four years so they are getting back by stinging the public,” he said.

Bowie said some years ago that “music itself is going to become like running water or electricity”. He advised performers: “You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring.”

Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University, found that concert prices jumped 61 per cent in the US between 1996 and 2001 – faster than admission to the cinema, theatre or sporting events.

Price of fame

Genesis

Paris, June 30 £125-£295

Berlin, July 3 £70.50-£325

London, July 8 £110-£295

Amsterdam, July 1 125-£325

The Rolling Stones

Hamburg, August 15 £150-£495

London, August 21 £150-£495

El Ejido, Spain June 30 £125-£375

Rome, July 6 £98.46-£299.66

The Police

Paris, September 20 £80-£180

Cologne, September 12 £80-£180

London, September 9 £110-£295

Barcelona, September 29 £110-£280

Sources: www.eventsworldwide.com ; www.soldouteventtickets.com

Finally, some acknowledgement that it has gotten ridiculous. Deciding to see a concert has become primarily a financial decision if you like an artist. Very sad to think of all the great concerts I never would have seen when I was younger and poorer had this attitude prevailed then.

*********************************
And the queen is bravely shouting,
"What the hell is going on?"

"The Stones played to a thinly populated Stade de France in Paris this month"

Huh? That place was crowded with people! 50,000+ !!

Less people the better, I always say anyway....

I find it interesting...rather, irritating, that Streisand's people blame the ticket price on the orchestra. If you can't get an orchestra that lets your prices be reasonable? Tour without one.

McCartney and the Stones both blame the prices on their screens and stages...so if it's a problem, tour without them. We don't *need* these huge setups. We need a couple of simple screens for the people at the back, and a few lights, and music. That's something big acts seem to have misunderstood... please my ears, and the rest will follow. I promise, it will.

T

um, how is this supposed to dash our worries? its about how YES, there are lots of empty seats at stones shows. the subject title seems fairly nonsensical . . .

*and i'm just like that bird - singing just for you*

the ticket prices they list for the Stones are all wrong.

For Police too. It's a shame due to the expertise of Alan Krueger.

Its typical that the music industry blames the public for high prices,(file sharing) when the music industry has been screwing the public and the bands for years with ridiculous cd prices.
The Stones are not suffering financialy from the so called 'Bowie theory' - only gaining. 40 Licks is in and out of the charts and no doubt all their back catalogue is selling while they remain on tour.
Ticket prices in the Stones case are uneccessarily high - but they know people will be prepared to pay them on the basis that this might be their last tour.

Ditto - The Who, Genesis, Streisand and all the other old farts also on their apparant farewell tours.

I was at Stade de France...and it was not thinly populated!!!

Stade De France was not thinly populated...
ok, the highest tier was only 50-60 % full, with tarps covering large sections of this area, but the rest of the stadium was more or less to capacity.

timbernardis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> But managers and promoters appear to have
> misjudged the market. Barbra Streisand sang in
> France on Tuesday for the first and supposedly
> last time in her half-century career. Yet 3,000
> seats were empty in the Paris Bercy stadium. The
> top Paris prices were €582 euros (£390).

These articles always manipulate the facts or obscure them. So Streisand did have 3.000 empty seats - and that's pretty grave if you're playing a 6.000 - seater. It is - however - not so bad if you're playing a 100.000 - seater.

I've been trying to find the stadium on the net to see how many people it holds but could not. But putting a fact out like that is like telling us that people in Poland only make 300 Euro a month or something without telling about their monthly fixed costs (rent/housing, food, transport, etc.)

I digress......

But why do all these acts want to put on a show in Werchter when it seems to be located out in nowhere? (Based on the reports here on IORR).

You lose all the "perhaps-customers" - those only coming if the weather is good or they are not doing anything else in particular or just decide to go on a whim.

As far as I know, Copenhagen has sold about 30.000 tickets out of 48.000. But come 5th of August and the weather is fine, I'm sure they will sell a few more. Parken in Copenhagen is very easy to reach from all parts of Copenhagen. You can walk there in little more than half an hour from the center of town. Perhaps 45 minutes ;-)

Surprised to see that Streisand fans are among the worst downloaders. Always thought they were decent people. And now she has to cancel shows because everyone has downloaded her stuff...

Stones fans though... Well, we all know they're more and less trained to beg, borrow and steal! So how come Forbes Magazine declares "A bigger bang" to be the biggest economic success ever in concert tour history?

Come on guys, your downloading sucks! You'll have to do far better to keep down ticket prices!!!

On BridgesTour in USA '97 I payed 60 USD for front seats in the pitch (section A's, row 10)in Philadelphia Veterans or Foxboro and in '99 it was 350 USD ( OK, that was arena tour), but on LICKS for Giants Stadium a front seat was 400 USD and on ABB 500 USD.
Comparing prices we can say that a front row ticket costed nearly ten times more on ABB than on Bridges.

Europe is tricky as well, but tickets have not jumped up so much as in the USA.
Urban Jungle was 60 Marks (Germany), Bridges was around 100 marks, LICKS cca.100 euros, and ABB this year is 170 or so. But in Europe you still can find reasonable prices, if the pitch is not seated. I don't think that a 80-100 euros is much for a FOS ticket for Stones.

In my home Hungary and in the neighbourhood (Belgrade, Bucharest, Brno, Budva) GA or FOS tix are charged for about 60 euros.

>> on LICKS for Giants Stadium a front seat was 400 USD and on ABB 500 USD <<

don't know about Licks, but at most stadiums on ABB the first ten rows were priced at 99 USD (60 GBP).

mofur Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> As far as I know, Copenhagen has sold about 30.000
> tickets out of 48.000. But come 5th of August and
> the weather is fine, I'm sure they will sell a few
> more. Parken in Copenhagen is very easy to reach
> from all parts of Copenhagen. You can walk there
> in little more than half an hour from the center
> of town. Perhaps 45 minutes ;-)

I don't think so. On previous tours the tickets in Denmark have sold out within hours. Last year the Horsens concert sold out with 84.500 tickets the day they went on sale.
There are 2 factors I think, the ticket prices have skyrockedet from last year and it's only a few months since they were here.
Having said that...I'll be there anyway...just wanna see them in their final concert i Denmark. Just hope they'll deliver as great a show as last years in Horsens :-)

It does not make much sense to mention VIP ticket prices incl. bar and dining e.g. Hamburg £495. This falsifies statistics. The most expensive seat in Hamburg is 190 EUR.

V.I.P. Tickets for Budapest cost 600,- Euros. 3 weeks ago half of them were sold!

Genesis

Paris, June 30 £125-£295????

I was there (the place was packed) and paid only 50 euros for FOS (against 91 for the Stones), maybe carré d'or was more expensive but not 350 euros.

NumberOneStonesFan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "The Stones played to a thinly populated Stade de
> France in Paris this month"
>
> Huh? That place was crowded with people! 50,000+
> !!
>
> Less people the better, I always say anyway....
>

<<< The Stones played to a thinly populated Stade de France in Paris this month >>>

Absolute BOLLOCKS ... I personally don't give a shite about numbers down to the nearest thousand or two or three, but to describe the Stade de france on 16th June as "thinly populated" is horseshit of the first order. It is possible that anyone looking down on the pitch from above would have a seen a FOS with lots of space in it, this is true. And for those of us in there - like me for example - very bloody welcome that bit of space was. And had they moved their eyes to the other side of the barrier dividing FOS from the rest of the pitch, they'd have seen that they were packed in there like sardines, to me it looked like hell on bloody earth to be quite honest. As for the terraces, there were no huge tracts of unoccupied seats. TOTALLY misleading, and the journalist in question that wrote that needs to be pilloried.

JumpinJeppeFlash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was at Stade de France...and it was not thinly
> populated!!!

THANK YOU

Adrian-L Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Stade De France was not thinly populated...
> ok, the highest tier was only 50-60 % full, with
> tarps covering large sections of this area, but
> the rest of the stadium was more or less to
> capacity.

THANK YOU TOO

here's where one can leave comments on the shabby misreporting: [entertainment.timesonline.co.uk]

Metallica sold out Oslo Valle Hovin 40000 in one hour, Stones sold 35000 in 2 months.

The historic occasion this coming August 26th, of what is likely to be the LAST EVER CONCERT by the greatest rock n' roll band in the world, is far from sold out.

Anyone like to explain why?

I've not seen one advert in the press and I subscribe to most music mags.

"Metallica sold out Oslo Valle Hovin 40000 in one hour, Stones sold 35000 in 2 months"
Ticket prices for Metallica? And The Rolling Stones?

LOGIE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The historic occasion this coming August 26th, of
> what is likely to be the LAST EVER CONCERT by the
> greatest rock n' roll band in the world, is far
> from sold out.
>
> Anyone like to explain why?


very little advertising/ p.r

ticket pricing/ Stones concert fatigue

Bank Holiday Sunday... people doing other things.. affordable recreational family stuff.

1962 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Metallica sold out Oslo Valle Hovin 40000 in one
> hour, Stones sold 35000 in 2 months"
> Ticket prices for Metallica? And The Rolling
> Stones?


Metallica NOK 575
Rolling Stones NOK 785

You can still get tickets to the "sold out" Metallica concert at the official box office. The concert is one week away.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-07-03 15:15 by klypp.

LOGIE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The historic occasion this coming August 26th, of
> what is likely to be the LAST EVER CONCERT by the
> greatest rock n' roll band in the world, is far
> from sold out.
>
> Anyone like to explain why?

All of the reasons Adrian-L mentioned plus the truly inexplicable ... namely Cohl's and Ticketmaster's bizarre marketing/sales strategy. If you EVER figure that out, don't hesitate to let me know will ya ?

If you're suggesting however that on the day that matters - the day of the show - that it'll be anything less than sold out/packed to capacity with probably only a few of the REALLY crap seats up in the dizzy heights of the rafters remaining unoccupied, I'd be prepared to wager say ... the price of a facelift in Madrid on it. (About a fiver !!!! It was a quick job involving a meat cleaver !!!!)

Well, for me, I really don´t know what is happening, not especially in the music business. It looks like that everybody grabs as much money as he/she could get. Time out of mind, that´s it, relly. It doesn´t depend wether it is a concert ticket or a book or a loaf of bread...