Paranoid Android wrote on Jul 27
th, 2015 at 8:34pm:
I have no doubt the Stones could do that...but realistically...in your opinion, how long could they hold a residency there, say with 80% sellout?
10 Shows? 20...30...50...??? I think at least 30 shows, basing it on attendance from ZIP CODE and the fact that there were a fair number of maniacs who traveled to see them....that would account for a near 100% sellout...then another 15-20 or so as the hype falls...a few more and then it would be in the 60-80% mark...
Now if it were RCMH...I say 80-100+ shows at near sell out for sure...of course i have absolutely NOTHING to base this off of...
At Stones prices? I'd be surprised if they could do three or four. And that's only if they were playing no other shows for a couple of hundred miles.
They played three shows in the New York/NJ area in December 2012. These were their only shows in the US and their first shows in America for six years. It wasnt a tough ticket. Mainly because they were so expensive and while the shows 'officially' sold out, they were easy to get on secondary ticket sale sites.
The Zip Code isnt a good example because that was a stadium tour. An arena tour for the Stones is a risk outside a few main markets because they're asking for a guarantee of about $4-5 million a show, and most promoters will shit their pants at risking that amount of overhead for a 15,000 seat venue. Thats the main reason why the recent tour took place in stadiums, because they could get their guarantee and largely fill the stadiums because they were able to provide a wide variety of ticket prices (not to mention the usual practice of bait and switch with firesales as well as relying on thousands of idiots buying expensive tickets and then immediately trying to resell them for even more inflated prices on places like Seatwave)
U2 are a far bigger draw these days and much more of a sure thing for a promoter. Their guarantee is lower compared to the Stones, their prices are far more affordable for arena shows as well as stadium dates and they've sold out literally every concert they've put on for about 25 years now. And these are genuine sellouts. No tarping or silly claims like selling 30,000 tickets at Soldier Field and claiming its a full house (despite playing there to 55,000 a year before)
The Stones struggled to sell two nights in arenas in major cities even in 2013. On the Bigger Bang tour, they managed to do it in a couple of markets like New York and Chicago but to do more than two shows they needed to add a third night maybe 4-5 months later to give their target market time to recover. Add to that factor that U2 played 8 shows at MSG in a period of two weeks. They could probably have done it in less time. The Stones play just two shows a week. It would take them almost a month to play that many gigs. Imagine the costs of keeping that organisation together for that long just to play eight shows!
If the Stones used U2's ticket price module they probably wouldnt sell out as many nights at any venue, but they would come reasonably close. However, they don't and more unfortunately, they won't.