Arenas

[WILKA]

With only one date sold out and that being the smallest venue do you think booking arenas was a little optermistic?

[ZiZi]

I'm thinking the same. I guess closer to the gigs extra publicity will manage to fill them to a reasonable account. I'm not travelling to Manchester to see them perform in a semi-filled arena

[hummingbird]

There must be some sort of statistics compiled with previous tours ticket sales/demand to judge these things .. otherwise how can they tell what demand there is?

[meanestgreenmeme]

Oh the embarrassment and shame......again.....

[Abstract Unknown Girl]

Originally Posted by hummingbird

There must be some sort of statistics compiled with previous tours ticket sales/demand to judge these things .. otherwise how can they tell what demand there is?

Yeah I've thought about this before and also wondered even if these arenas dates don't sell out if it would be more financially viable than selling out smaller venues. I don't know the in's and out's of booking tours obviously, but I would have thought it's generally more lucrative playing arenas than smaller venues (I could be completely wrong though, so don't crucify me if that's not how it works ).

I'm not massively thrilled with arenas and was a bit surprised they went down that route for this tour, but oh well. They curtained off the upper tiers at some venues on the EMG20 tour (and the sort-of-but-not Futurology tour), so I guess that can't be a major concern if they've booked similar sized venues again.

[sculptureofabloke]

I don't get the Manics gig booking system at all. Both the Know Your Enemy and Send Away The Tigers tours started with 2-5000 capacity academies and shit before booking arenas in the winter. Alright, the Know Your Enemy arena tour didn't happen but it was booked.. Makes more sense to gauge the popularity of an album or the band at the time before you go for arenas, alright bit harder to do when you've just gone the longest you've ever gone without an album but the anniversary tours were well received.. Surely there'll be another "single" or even two before the tour and wonder how many people are waiting to hear the album to decide whether to go or not.

Like Abstract Unknown Girl says, I wonder about the viability side of shit too. Yeah, filling 3/4 of an arena you're gonna sell more tickets than you would at most other venues, but with the cos of performing at an arena being higher... it must work out alright for em eh? Might be worth keeping an eye on stubhub nearer the time.

[dolphin]

It's a strange decision; unless the album turns out to be a five star classic, these huge arenas are unlikely to sell out.

Having got used to seeing them mainly in halls and theatres over recent years, not terribly excited about seeing them at Wembley Arena which is a lousy venue anyway.

[Routine Builder]

I think the response to the THB and EMG tours have made them a tad over confident. I think it they billed this as a joint Resistance and TIMT tour, it would do better in sales but that horse has already left the stables.

[FacelessSenseOfVoid]

That new studio won't pay for itself you know.

[darkanddivine]

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.

[dolphin]

Great analysis there.

For London, they've sold out two nights at Brixton quite recently which is a total of nearly 10,000 tickets. Wembley Arena holds 12,500 so not such a huge stretch to see it full I suppose.

[hummingbird]

I've always thought it obvious that 3 brixtons pretty much equals one night at Wembley but some people still think arenas are too big for the manics. Makes sense to do less shows if James keeps getting the lurgy

[ZiZi]

Any signs of arena's (or parts of the arena's) selling out?
Anyone with inside information about sales for this tour?

(I really hope for a packed Manchester Arena, that's why I'm asking )

[rosetree]

It hasn't sold out at Leeds yet, though sorry I dont know about the sales. I'm looking forward to see them standing

[darkanddivine]

You could look on all the ticketing sites if you care enough to see what tickets remain as a rough gauge. But since each vendor will have different allocations (and "sold out" means many different things) it's hard to know. Some gigs even "sell out" several times these days to keep demand up.