I turned to watch Larry King the other night and there is Ryan Searcrest the most boring human alive, and i thought at first it was another nightmare where he's on every channel. But he was answering a "callers" question about people like George Michael,Madonna and Janet doing summer tours, and did "HE" think they would be successful (as if he knows anything about music). And he responded as if this whole "Touring" thing was new. FOLKS since the early 90's when soundscan took over, the POPULAR selling artists of the day have been non-existent in the touring boxscore and total GHOSTS when it comes to the year end money makers. This is not NEW NEWS. I think the last time the HITMAKERS where actually the big tour-draws, was in the 80's. You had charttoppers like Bruce,Jovi,Elton,Prince,MJ,Madonna,Janet,George,Billy etc... they had the big hits, the big albums, and the big tours. Nowadays, you may see 1 or 2 artists pop up, but even the big hittmakers arent selling tickets, Usher back in his big moment, struggled to sell tickets, Timberlake, though grossing alot of money, didnt have good % of sold out shows, Beyonce and Alicia Keys together couldnt sell out Madison Square Garden, something that Elton John can do in his sleep.

I think people would be better served instead of recognizing this SCIENCE, they would be better served in asking why cant todays Chartoppers sell a ticket? MY thought on this is simple, and its got nothing to do with $$$ because there are plenty of artists playing clubs that i wouldnt spend a dime on. EXPOSURE (and im not talking the classic EXPOSE album), its exposure, something EDDIE MURPHY said way back in 1986 in answer to a question about WHY doesnt he do commercials. He simply said, doing a movie is unique and to get someone to come out their house and put down $$ to see is the greatest thing, if they can see you 24/7 on a Coke commercial and hawking a volvo or on the cover of every other magazine, your talent and product CHEAPENS in its worth and uniqueness.

Touring is old school. Basically, the idea of a hit single or album is promotional to get folks to come out and see a live performer. Of course, the economies of scale jump so high with a major hit and you only tour when you're ready. That's the flaw in AI, people have to have the music live in their face and ears to appreciate any artist of longevity. Who'd actualy pay o see any ofthese fledgling singers?

On the other hand, I just laid down a hundy each for two Stevie Wonder tix in July. I don't care if he doesn't have a new album out nor do I care if it sells out, I'm just glad to see him live.

Duh, the internet changed things. Word of mouth about tours gets around better. You can find out about how good shows were in Europe, or they can find out about tours here, wherever.

PFunkjazz said:

Yeah but people will pay to see these acts no matter what. Nowadays your hits dont dictate to "putting asses in seats" as Pete Rose said. Beyonce can sell millions and have a billion dollar fashion line but can barely sell out her shows, and in some venues she was 50-75% full. And thats just using Beyonce as an example, there are artists that cant even get on the road because people wont pay to see them, mainly because they are satisfied with their ringtone of that artist. And we cant just say, well younger kids dont go to shows? BULLSHIT, who the hell was going to see MJ and PRince and George Michael Madonna Duran Duran and others back in the 80's? Not the older crowds.

The point is there is a longevity factor in these acts that you see in the top of the touring game, the SCARY thing will be when they become too old to tour, or just touring because of the grind it takes.

lastdecember said:

Part of the problem about the moneymaking discrepancy among the older and newer artists lies among the top selling artists themselves. The artists who topped the charts in the 80's and early 90's like Nirvana, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band and Smashing Pumpkins were generally quite diverse musically and knew how to perform live shows. Even the cheesiest hair metal bands of the late 1980's had at least a couple of guitarists who were good enough musically to entertain a crowd of people at a live concert event. However, most of the chart-topping acts these days consist mostly of manufactured pop acts or divas and hip-hop artists. Hip hop is very entertaining to a lot of people, but live concerts is its most glaring weakness. Rap acts may do well in the clubs, but transfer them to arenas and stadiums, and most of them get lost on stage. Combine that with a lot of second rate pop acts who get huge hits through studio wizardry but either can't sing live or have wooden stage presence, and you get a bunch of acts that people aren't willing to shell out money for. People like Usher, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and even Mariah Carey may be decent enough performers to entertain a huge crowd, but because their peers are considered second rate, their concert grosses suffer as a result. When you consider that most people have a limited budget to spend on concerts during a given year, and they are given a choice to either go to a Justin Timberlake concert or a Prince concert, which concert do you think they will choose? Unless they are an exceptionally rabid fan of either artist, they will probably see the more seasoned pro.

Having said that, for an up-and-coming band that can't comfortably rely on mainstream radio, MTV or VH1 to promote their work anymore, they have to tour to get their music heard. What helps them now is all of the social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook that gives them feedback on exactly where their fans are, so they can plan their tours accordingly. Some artists may have been planning their tours in the past based on where other acts have done well in the past but completely ignored out of the way places like the mountain west states. Now these same acts may find out through MySpace that they have 10,000 fans in Boise, Idaho who would be willing to travel or have traveled 1500 miles to see one of their concerts, and instead of forcing these Idaho fans to go to Denver or Seattle to see one of their shows, they can plan accordingly and book a show in Boise.

No one's hip to it. Music as an industry died a while ago.

It's all ads. The shows exist as another form of promo. The labels buy tickets just like they do records. What's the goal? To bring attention to the 9389048538958394853858345 companies that sponsor these wack ass hood broadway shows and other lame shows.

Why can't they sell tickets if they wanted to, because they suck of course. These are random people plucked out of nowhere who had a story, "sound," and image created for them that looks and sounds like everything else already out there. The only people checking for them are little kids that don't know any better which is why all the kiddie tours do well.

There's far too much money to made by promoting a product for these monsters to consider finding real artists and grooming them.

People became hip to making money from concerts in the early 60's. All those concerts in the 60's? They weren't putting them on for free. \
Artists had to do a lot less of it and rely on sales, songwriting royalties and merchandising. Or they had to be good like Prince.
Now record companies want artist to tour to hopefully generate record sales.

728huey said:

Co-Sign People are not going to shell out money to see piss poor performances.
Say what you want about P just doing "all hits' shows he rocks and people come out to see him. Young artist need to watch and learn.

lastdecember said:

In Europe companies buy most of the tickets to the shows of the veteran artists (at least the best seats), and hand them over to their clients and own employees. Big household name artists from UK & US (basically if they are just known by people over here) will sell out their shows really quickly because of this. It's not really because of artistry or anything like that, just as long there's some arena booked and tickets are put on sale.