alandail said:

Don Ho could sell out the Fillmore in as almost as fast a time!

FunkyStrange said:

No, it's not that simple. None of the above things guarantee a major amount of ticket sales.

Se7en said:

That's a damn good idea, isn't it?

alandail said:

After the first concert at the Xcel after the second Celebration I heard plenty of people talking about what a bad show it was and how they deserved a refund. I never thought I would see a bad Prince show but that one surely was.

alandail said:

I don't doubt that, but I've heard quite the opposite. Not everyone is the same.

lovemachine said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who hears the other side of things.

EvilWhiteMale said:

tsc tsc tsc...wrong again fella..."why U give people WHAT THEY WANT, when U oughta give WHAT THEY NEED?"
The only commitment I x-pect from Prince as a fan of his work is that he will always keep the MUSIC as the main act. It's all about music from a real musicians...obviously this put me and U in different groups...and that's ok! What's bitter 4 u it's pretty sweet 4 me...it's like when I want water I go straight 2 the fountain...Don't drink manufactured bottled water...got it? anyways if those "soda pop acts" U said can quench ur thisty...go 4 it

go2theMax said:

Hey, you been smokin the wacky tobaccy?

go2theMax said:

take me 4 granted but never take as one of ur kind
have a real point b4 discuss something..."u smokin' wacky tabaccy?" is a good line 2 put put a final dot in a discussion when u're running out of reasons 2 justify ur thoughts...if U don't have something clever 2 say, obviously

EvilWhiteMale said:

Hey, man when you don't like something just say so and don't try to make a general consensus out of your opinion.

Arena concert.... I'm thinking: LIVESEXY!

"In The Round" ....

for me that didn't work (LoveSexy Tour) !!!

Prince still acts as if there's a front and a back ...
most of the times he's playing for the front ...
sometimes he's playing for the back ...
he's never playing for the sides ...

so, if your seat's in the back ... you're fucked
if your seat's at one of the sites ... you're double fucked.

ThataintFunky said:

So.... let them spend some extra $$$ and put the stage on a rotating platform!

Thierry said:

I agree, I would be right pissed off if I got a ticket for the back or side and never got to see anything but stage equipment.

Wasn't the televised Lovesexy show (from Dortmund) on a rotating stage ?

I always assumed that playing 'in the round' by default meant a rotating stage, it seems a bit pointless otherwise.

the thing is surely prince knows he wont sellout the arenas as things stand at the moment. so there is somethign behind the scenes we will probably find out (tommorow im guessing) that will boost ticket sales. as much as there might be potential for interest in prince, im sure people are still wary of his new music, and the hits have generally been very played in USA from what i can tell (but then again he has over 40 top 40 hits or something?! 22 top 10 hits, he can rotate abit i think!).

so how well would musicology have to do to sellout these arenas? very well i think, plus i think its the sort of album that will be a grower, it will eb a steady seller if anything surely? which means the early dates of the tour wont sellout out on the basis of new music

i think the opening act could be something really. what are outkast up to? think about it, ive not heard anything abuot them doing a tour. theyre the biggest act in the USA at the moment, and inducting prince in r&r hall of fame.

the only possible thign about that is if everyone leaves after seeing outkast!

AsylumUtopia said:

.... the televised Lovesexy show: I was seated at the left side .... double fucked!
You can see it on your tele .... almost always playing to the front ... sometimes to the back
(look at "I wish u heaven")

so ...no, there wasn't any rotating stage!
But there wasn't any visible equipment on stage neither ... but the basket could stand in your sight ...
[This message was edited Mon Feb 23 5:42:52 2004 by ThataintFunky]

go2theMax said:

If you don't know what my point is by now, then you're not paying attention.

I find ure ignorance to ppls love 4 something really disturbing.

I like when he plays the smaller venues (saw him in Richmond, Va. Hit n Run) it was great! The arena tour is not as appealing. I like camping out all night 2 buy a ticket knowing it will sell out as soon as the doors open! I'm not interested in hearing silly critics bash our hero when he doesn't sell out big shows. Hell, no 1 does that any more!

I don't care if there are only 100 people in the arenas. I'll be right there up front.

TheGoldExperience said:

I'll go on record and take the opposite view. I predict full houses for the entire North American arena tour.

Why? Four Reasons:

1. Big-Time Promoters. Prince has cut deals with major promoters for this tour. That means radio support, radio contests, e-mail marketing, press releases, and all the other aspects of a full-blown, organized, promoter-driven major tour. Prince has been his OWN "promoter" on recent tours and it's the difference between night and day. Real tour promoters put up-front money into marketing and promotion, and work the system.

Current Example: Tickets.com sent a dedicated e-mail to thousands of public subscribers, with a full-color picture of Prince performing at the Grammys, to promote the public onsale of the Reno Musicology show. The e-mail contained a raft of hype about the show and the tour. This happened because the promoter PAID for it, and provided copy and graphics through a professional creative department.

The result? As of today, a mere 48 hours after the tickets went onsale, the Reno show is already 95% sold! The only tickets left are in the LAST rows of the upper deck, in the CORNERS.

2. Advance Notice. More time = increased ticket sales. It's a numbers game, and statistics show that every extra day of onsale time equals extra ticket sales. It gives more people more time to tell a friend, more time to hear a commercial, more time to see an ad in the Sunday paper, more time to earn money to pay for the tickets...you get the drift.

Prince hasn't used advance notice in many, many years; preferring a "hit and run" approach at smaller venues. But now, with over a month's advance notice, those shows will be absolutely PACKED by the time the shows happen. Even the most out-of-the-loop people will get the word. Everyone and their grandma will be at these shows.

3. Major Media Promotion. The Grammy Awards, Tavis Smiley, a big press conference at the El Rey Theatre in LA, Jay Leno's Tonight Show, Ellen DeGeneres, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction on VH-1...those are just a few of the places where Prince is getting back into the public eye. This is only the beginning. The double-disc DVD of Purple Rain will be released later in the year, providing still more hype and publicity.

This will translate to better ticket sales. The more Prince displays his live skills in the media, the more people will line up to see him in person. Not only because he's a great performer; but also because they will buy into the whole "Prince is Back" publicity campaign. Especially since the American media is now taking a "coronation" angle towards Prince, spinning him like a legend, instead of talking about name changes and other weird angles.

4. Timing. Right now, with the 20th Anniversary of Purple Rain, the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia are working in Prince's favor. He is being inducted in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, and being introduced as a legend by Outkast and Alicia Keys. He is not merely another performer trotting out another new project. Nostalgia and hard-won respect are finally coming around to Prince.

Someone on this thread used the 1988 Lovesexy Tour as an example of unsold American arena shows. Well, guess what? The American public didn't WANT to see Prince on the Lovesexy tour, as great as that tour was. Americans absolutely hated the "ambiguous" Lovesexy album cover at the height of the conservative Reagan/Bush era. Prince's star was on the wane as Purple Rain was "over" and Americans were eager to move on to the next big thing. But NOW...with timing and nostalgia on Prince's side...the same Americans who stayed away in 1988 will come out in droves. And they'll bring their children!

In conclusion: The Musicology Tour will play to packed houses night after night. Bet on it!

ConsciousContact said:

I think he'll be OK now, though, In the mid-90's he was getting no press or just bad press. In the last couple of years he's become very "trendy" with all the posers, Hoxton mullet types, music producers and media scum. I think he'll be able to fill it now. People who used to take the piss out of me for liking him are now turning round to me and telling me how much they like him.

Temptation said:

..and then you woke up.

There are plenty of tickets left for all 5 shows that are on sale right now. Reno is doing slightly better because I'm pretty sure he hasn't even played there before (like I was talking about earlier in the thread). And Reno is not 95% sold - not even close.

Again, hype doesn't always equal major tickets sales.

TheGoldExperience said:

So what?

---

Temptation said:

I tend to agree. . .packed or nearly so. . .

TheGoldExperience said:

such a cynic. First of all, how does anything you said contradict what Temptation said? The promotion for the tour doesn't even start until tomorrow's press conference. The promotion for the album and single also doesn't start until tomorrow's press conference.

As for reno, I just checked to see how close you could get buying 2 tickets. The best available seat is upper level, section 16 (which is in the corner), row 36, seat's 9 and 10. Row 36 is the best available seat. There are 36 sections in the arena. At an average row size of 10 seats/row (seems reasonable, if not low), that 12960 tickets sold.

I had to do something before I posted this, came back and checked again - now the best available seat is section 12, row 38, seats 13 and 14 (I guess there are more than 10 per row, huh). If he played a smaller 3k seat arena, 3 out of 4 people who already have bought tickets wouldn't have been able to go.

Who even says he expects to sell out every show? Maybe he's simply trying to reach as large an audience as possible with this tour. But I sure wouldn't rule out sellouts for the reasons Temptation outlined. And he didn't even mention the return to radio that Musicology will bring.

alandail said:

I'm just trying to be realistic. And just because I don't think Prince is the best thing since sliced bread, doesn't mean I'm a cynic.

alandail said:

This is what came up for me for the best available tickets for the Reno show:


Section 20 Middle Concourse (tiel blue on seating chart), Row 29, Seat 7, Price: $75.00


As you can see there's plenty of tickets left...

I don't think there'll be more than 7-8,000 people at this show, btw.

alandail said:

Not Prince.

alandail said:

Well, I've basically already gone over that:

You honestly believe Prince can sell 5-6x the amount of tickets that he did in most markets on the ONA tour? That's just crazy and it's not going to happen.

There's a huge difference between buying 1 ticket and buying 2. Most people go to the concert with someone. The result is there are scattered 1 seat tickets available in a nearly sold out show. This is why I did my test with two tickets.

For the ONA tour, I bought club tickets. I tried buying two tickets and it was about 20 rows back, just minutes after the presale started. I instead got a single ticket and was in the center of the front row, right in front of Prince, right beside the guy who hands him his guitars. Does my getting such a good seat mean there was nobody buying tickets, of course not. It simply means that by some quirk, there was still a leftover seat in the front row. When I got there I saw that the front row had an odd number of seats and all of the other seats in my row were taken by people who got a pair of tickets. Had anyone got 3, I wouldn't have been so lucky.

If there were tons of seats left, you would be able to find two close seats. Not only that, the best single seat being row 29 in section 20 shows the whole lower concourse/floor is completely sold out and most of the middle concourse is also sold out.

Also, I think you are looking at the chart wrong. From the seating chart I found, the middle concourse isn't the tiel blue, that's the lower concourse. The middle concourse is the lower half of the yellow.

alandail said:

That's really hard to prove and it's pointless arguing over this theory as I for example have been to many concerts by myself.

alandail said:

Not necessarily. I've been to ticketmaster's site many a time and brought up the best available seats and they've tended to be pretty different almost every time.

Btw, the floor wouldn't seat more than 1,500-2,000 tops. And the teil blue concourse wouldn't seat more than 3-4,000. So, were looking at 5-6,000 tickets sold so far, probably.

alandail said:

Well, maybe but usually the middle means the middle, so I think I'm right.

so even by your calculations, in 48 hours, before the real promotion even starts tomorrow, he's already sold 2x the tickets that the ONA arenas held, yet you think it's a mistake to play bigger arenas? How is it a mistake to allow more fans to see your show?

How is it hard to prove that buying two tickets gives you a better indication of just how full the arena is. A scattered empty seat here and there is insignificant. They're not going to sell the tickets in a way that leaves two empty seats that aren't beside each other in any given row. They're also going to match them up to try to get the best fit to fill the arena. The software to do this is pretty straightforward to write and would be pretty efficient at filling rows, just leaving scattered empty seats. If you can no longer get two seats together in the $75 tickets, there should be at most a dozen or so single seats left in that area.