European Tour Sales = Desaster

josevolution said:

Air23 said:

Low ticket sale in Europe is not only a fiasco in terms of unsold tickets for 2024 shows. The reputation of the band has turned from grunge heroes to greedy old corporate people

It’s hard to argue your point! 

Agreed

willwall said:

ilockyer said:

jimjam1982 said:

Soybeans said:

willwall said:

I’m so happy that this has backfired on them. 

Things that are ok in the US, doesn’t mean it’s ok to do here. 

Manchester is 50% sold. London is easily less than 50% sold. You reap what you sow at the end of the day.

Those saying it’s not the band and that they are entirely blameless are wrong. They’ll know what’s going on. At least Springsteen had the bottle to come out and own up to the Dynamic pricing and what he was doing. 

Can see a lot of these shows being reduced or even on offer in a few weeks time.

Is already happening. The prices for Barcelona are coming down. Barcelona uppers down $30, lowers have come down by $50.

But it's too late for many. Scanning the sad comments on the socials, it's clear that our proud Spanish PJ brothers and sisters are done. Sadly,  I have to hope these arenas remain half empty at show time. 

If its half empty the show gets cancelled. Be careful what you wish for if you have tix

With this lovely variable pricing, a show doesn't need to sell out to be break even or be profitable. So long as they sell enough at whatever price to raise the funds for the promoter to cover all costs including paying the band, there'd be no reason to cancel even if 50% of the seats were unsold.

I get that. But on the other side, I doubt the band will want to walk out to a load of empty seats both from a pride perspective and image of the band. Hopefully they learn their lesson from this tour and go back to how it’s always been and how it should be.

Or just quit touring to that city.

Zen23 said:

Are you saying that the logical consequence of people not being willing or able to afford to pay such high ticket prices is to simply stop playing for the people in those cities? And only play in cities where people can afford the horrendous ticket prices and other costs associated with a concert experience? Find the flaw in this perverse system and what it leads to.

Honestly? Switching markets is just one small step away from taking those outrageous ticket prices. I can totally see them skipping markets, where they can‘t make big dollars.

I also fear that this is it for Europe for the time being. They're certainly not going to put up with this kind of presale and this kind of shitstorm again in two years' time. I can only see two scenarios for another European tour going well. Reasonable prices, at least in the upper tiers from the start. Or a farewell tour with even higher prices, which the fans don't care about because it will be the last time.

Zen23 said:

I also fear that this is it for Europe for the time being. They're certainly not going to put up with this kind of presale and this kind of shitstorm again in two years' time. I can only see two scenarios for another European tour going well. Reasonable prices, at least in the upper tiers from the start. Or a farewell tour with even higher prices, which the fans don't care about because it will be the last time.

or hitting the festival circuit

pdalowsky said:

Zen23 said:

I also fear that this is it for Europe for the time being. They're certainly not going to put up with this kind of presale and this kind of shitstorm again in two years' time. I can only see two scenarios for another European tour going well. Reasonable prices, at least in the upper tiers from the start. Or a farewell tour with even higher prices, which the fans don't care about because it will be the last time.

or hitting the festival circuit

I wouldn't worry too much. This is a shorter Euro leg than usual and they've certainly hit the resistance mark price wise. I can see them offsetting lower price tickets for regular shows with a few more festival appearances to make future tours work for them. 

PJ knows that there's a decent size fanbase here with relatively high income, clearly not US level but greater than most parts of the world. They won't want to oversaturate the market in the US, so it makes sense to do Europe, South America etc once in a while.  

pdalowsky said:

Zen23 said:

I also fear that this is it for Europe for the time being. They're certainly not going to put up with this kind of presale and this kind of shitstorm again in two years' time. I can only see two scenarios for another European tour going well. Reasonable prices, at least in the upper tiers from the start. Or a farewell tour with even higher prices, which the fans don't care about because it will be the last time.

or hitting the festival circuit

I've been thinking about this. They've played Werchter each time they've come over since 2010, and are here again at the same time but not playing this time. Is this because they've increased the booking fee and Werchter has decided they don't want to pay it, or that PJ management thought that dynamic pricing on sell out arena shows would make them more than the Werchter festival payment would? It was always one of the "bankers" around which an EU tour was set, along with Pinkpop, with occasionally Open'er or Arras Main Square in years past. 
UK festival wise moving forward, the only ones that can afford them are Download/BST/Reading & Leeds, Glastonbury don't pay the going rate so can be immediately ruled out. Maybe a solitary UK show at Wembley Stadium next time around, that must be a box they want to tick before they're done. 

Mad Cool & NOS are the outliers, given how cheap those festivals are, for day and weekend tickets, they must be either making very little money at those prices, have any losses subsidised by sponsors/local authorities, or they had signed a multi-year deal with PJ at a price that made this possible. The crowds there will get a full PJ show for fraction of what everywhere else pays. If PJ return again, that's not going to happen. 

just_one said:

While i do think the tour will end up selling , i dont think barcelona night 2 and  berlin night 2 will sell out, specially barcelona, Berlin night 2 will be close to sell out alongside london IF they drop the prices from the seats in the top of the stadium (in london case)

There is not much diffence between Berlin 1 and Berlin 2. hardly any tickets in the 3rd tier were sold for 175 EUR for both nights. I don't think they will sell out any Berlin night without further discounted tickets for the 3rd tier.

Zen23 said:

Are you saying that the logical consequence of people not being willing or able to afford to pay such high ticket prices is to simply stop playing for the people in those cities? And only play in cities where people can afford the horrendous ticket prices and other costs associated with a concert experience? Find the flaw in this perverse system and what it leads to.

Yes, this exactly. Kind of like the many US cities they used to play but don’t anymore in the last decade. They aren’t interested in playing 72 shows a year anymore, something’s gonna give.