left shoe shuffle wrote on Oct 22
nd, 2010 at 12:05am:
Corporate sponsorship is no panacea.
More acts than not tour without it, and many of them - Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam and Phish to name but a few - manage to keep their tickets costs down and still turn a tidy profit.
I'd imagine that Phish's "staging costs" are comparable to acts charging considerably more, so that rationale goes pffft.
Not as many people as some might think are actually willing to paying those inflated prices anymore.
Just ask Rihanna, The Eagles and Jonas Brothers. They all canceled shows due to low ticket sales.
The ridiculously overpriced Lilith Fair tour tanked BIG this summer.
A slew of dates were canceled, and it played to less than half-filled houses most everywhere else.
Sales for NY area stadium shows by The Eagles and Bon Jovi were so sluggish that discounted package deals were offered, and in the case of The Eagles, the pricing was also restructured - the expensive seats suddenly weren't so expensive.
My local shed was offering deeply discounted tickets for virtually every show on their schedule.
I bought $10 tickets for The Dukes Of September a few days before the show.
People sitting behind us paid $65 when they initially went on sale.
Same deal with Brooks & Dunn.
Not a fan of theirs, but Merle Haggard was opening.
Got my 10 bucks worth - and then some - from Merle & The Strangers, and bailed long before B & D hit the stage.
Of course there are acts that are immune to these problems. For now.
The days of needing to get tickets day of sale are over for me.
I'll wait for the inevitable "Great Seats Just Released!" or discount offer e-mails.
And there's always somebody outside the venue with an extra or two that's willing to shake hands with Mr. Jackson...
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Nice input. However I said "9" out of ten times the major acts clean house. It's true. If you've looked at ticket prices over the past twelve years 90% of those major tours, with high ticket prices, were successes. It can certainly be done quite easily and promoters know that. It is more than likely if things are managed properly they "should" get away with it.... promoters realize they get away with it "most" of the time. Not always (especially within the past three years due to the economy)...but the majority of the time the major acts make a load of money. Sure...maybe not as much as The Stones but they make their millions and the tour is a success. This is what I was saying.
I realize certain bands refuse corporate sponsorship. This adds to what I was saying. By bands not having corporate sponsorship and pulling off successful tours is more testimony to our initial analysis of us being raked.
Ian