I think this is just the classic move to keep energy in reserve rather than doing big long tours. Completely understandable really. Liam Gallagher's recent tour was much the same, and plenty of other bands do fewer nights/bigger venues card as they get older. It's a bit like a super-sub coming on for 20 minutes to nod a last minute winner, rather than playing 90 minutes every week.
In terms of it selling out, (and I'm guessing here) but it could be down to the comparison between arenas and theatres, which would be the next obvious option.
If the arenas average out at 12k (and Llandudno will skew it down because it's quite small,) that's about 85,000 tickets to sell across 8 nights. So if the 8 arena dates are 75% sold out that gives you about 63,000 sales. As soon as you drop to theatres at 3.5k each (and that's being generous,) you'd have to completely sell out 16 nights in venues that size to get up to 56,000 tickets sold.
The difference between those two is 7,000 tickets. But 7,000 tickets at the face value of £36.50 is £255,500. So I presume the main reason is the boys think they'd rather do 8 good shows than 16 mediocre ones. And yes, that would probably pay for a studio. But I can see why many people have been there and done it with arena gigs.
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