Watching some of my favorite artists perform, i see they play in stadiums with like 70,000 fans.

do artist today still do this? i never hear or see of it? If not, what is the reason for not doing so?

Jay Z & Justin Timberlake are doing a stadium tour this summer. The Stones will probably do some along with arena shows. U2 did one a few years ago.

There's not that many acts these days that can draw more than an arena full of people, I would say that is the reason they have slowed down.

I'm grateful. Stadium shows sucked! Who wants to pay exorbitant amounts to sit a quarter mile from the stage and miss half the show lining up to pee? I ent to my share and there were only a few where the music was strong enough to overcome the unpleasant atmosphere.

i love the occasional stadium show - but festivals and parks seem to be more common locations with a bit of a different atmosphere. love more intimate settings for gigs too of course

in london there's usually a few stadium shows each year that people get excited about

i'm going to see Muse this summer at Emirates

went to Live Earth a few years ago at Wembley, was amazing

Paul McCartney at Liverpool Anfield stadium and Rolling Stones at Stade de France and Twickenham were also great in the last few years.

But yeah, there are so many festivals in europe that most bands just seem to play them - which works for me too

What a question. Of course they do... only in the summer though and only the big acts:

Depeche Mode
Madonna
AC/DC
Metallica
U2
Bruce Springsteen
Coldplay
Rolling Stones
Bon Jovi
Linkin Park
Robbie Williams
Take That
Prince (occasionally)
Kiss (in certain areas)
Guns N' Roses (in certain areas)
Aerosmith (in certain areas)
Iron Maiden (in certain areas)

all do usually stadium shows.

Since I'm at the front most of the time, I do love stadium and open air shows. There are few things more powerful than a stadium of 70.000 people singing along to music. Also I love when a show starts at daylight and ends at nighttime.

There are still some stadium shows, but like some other poster said, they tend to happen during the summer and only a few big name acts can pull off a stadium tour. The Rolling Stones, U2, Bruce Springsteen, and Dave Matthews Band can play stadiums, but many acts would rather band together to play festival shows and tours (Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Coachella, Vans Warped Tour).

Madonna plays stadiums when she goes on tour,and so does U2 and the Rolling Stones.

Personally,I would never go to a concert at a stadium.I prefer indoor arenas.

i would love to go to a stadium show, like someone else said it must be amazing having 70,000 singing the same song, becoming one just for a few hours to enjoy music. I saw Madonna back in October and Aerosmith in December, they both played in an arena, there was rumors that madonna would play at the Super Dome (i live by New Orleans) but she ended up playing at the NO arena. I hope to maybe go to a festival this summer, hopefully bonnorro (spelling?,lol) if any of you have any cool stadium show stories i'd love to hear.

bobzilla77 said:

Jay Z & Justin Timberlake are doing a stadium tour this summer. The Stones will probably do some along with arena shows. U2 did one a few years ago.

There's not that many acts these days that can draw more than an arena full of people, I would say that is the reason they have slowed down.

I'm grateful. Stadium shows sucked! Who wants to pay exorbitant amounts to sit a quarter mile from the stage and miss half the show lining up to pee? I ent to my share and there were only a few where the music was strong enough to overcome the unpleasant atmosphere.

U2's stadium shows have always been excellent. The last one was the highest grossing tour ever. If you simply bought a General Admission floor seat for $50, you got in cheap, and if you arrived an hour early, you got a great view. The actual seats in the stadium part were pretty expensive, but only for the lower level. If you joined the fan club, you got an exclusive release, and got to buy tickets in a Pre-Sale, so I saw SIX U2 STADIUM SHOWS FOR UNDER $400 including taxes and fees. All the U2 shows were around 2 hours and 20 minutes... A better value than Six Welcome 2 America Shows, which were all just under 2 hours.

The sound was great, and the setlists were pretty much the same, but got to hear a few different songs, including the only live performance of "The Wanderer" from Zooropa, and the only USA performance of "North Star."

Comparing to Prince...well, U2 has about half of the talent of Prince, but gave much more effort. Prince seemed to sleepwalking his way through Welcome 2 America. For example, he wasn't really singing on "Mountains," a song he hasn't played in 25 years, and the girls pretty much sang 85% OF IT. The U2 shows were professional, with only a few gimmicks. They didn't have any crowd flunky screaming "Put Your Hands Up" at the top of her lungs, they didn't do any medleys, and almost no cover songs at all.

The U2 360 Tour was great. Prince should have been better than U2. Musicology and One Nite Alone blow away any U2 tour, but Welcome 2 America was just awesome for bits and pieces.

[Edited 2/23/13 17:07pm]

average attendance of the concert U2 - more than 65 thousand people.

where they will put such a crowd?

stadium, of course.

It depends on the band and the country

veteran american artists? yeah

veteran non-american artists? perhaps in some countries, especially Europe

new american artists? only in America

new non-american artists? perhaps in some countries

dm3857 said:

Watching some of my favorite artists perform, i see they play in stadiums with like 70,000 fans.

do artist today still do this? i never hear or see of it? If not, what is the reason for not doing so?

No.

The acts that do play Stadiums (which are a few) do not have a audience of 70,000 people, maybe 25, 000 max but not over 70,000. Those are acts like Madonna, US, Bruce Springton etc

mjscarousal said:

dm3857 said:

Watching some of my favorite artists perform, i see they play in stadiums with like 70,000 fans.

do artist today still do this? i never hear or see of it? If not, what is the reason for not doing so?

No.

The acts that do play Stadiums (which are a few) do not have a audience of 70,000 people, maybe 25, 000 max but not over 70,000. Those are acts like Madonna, US, Bruce Springton etc

Of course they do! Just ask U2, Madonna, AC/DC, and Bruce Springsteen. Most stadiums hold between 50.000 and 70.000 people. Wembley stadium holds 90.000 people and south american stadiums sometimes are even bigger. And those mentioned acts usually do sell out (or getting close to selling out), sometimes in minutes.

PatrickS77 said:

mjscarousal said:

No.

The acts that do play Stadiums (which are a few) do not have a audience of 70,000 people, maybe 25, 000 max but not over 70,000. Those are acts like Madonna, US, Bruce Springton etc

Of course they do! Just ask U2, Madonna, AC/DC, and Bruce Springsteen. Most stadiums hold between 50.000 and 70.000 people. Wembley stadium holds 90.000 people and south american stadiums sometimes are even bigger. And those mentioned acts usually do sell out (or getting close to selling out), sometimes in minutes.

Maybe you missread me because I basically said the same thing

No, you said "acts that do play Stadiums (which are a few) do not have a audience of 70,000 people, maybe 25, 000 max" and I said. Yes, they do. They (artists, that I mentioned in my first post) are playing in stadiums which usually hold 50.000 people and are mostly sold out (or close too). And some do hold 70.000 or more and they are also usuually close to being sold out. So, no, you did not say the same thing.

PatrickS77 said:

No, you said "acts that do play Stadiums (which are a few) do not have a audience of 70,000 people, maybe 25, 000 max" and I said. Yes, they do. They (artists, that I mentioned in my first post) are playing in stadiums which usually hold 50.000 people and are mostly sold out (or close too). And some do hold 70.000 or more and they are also usuually close to being sold out. So, no, you did not say the same thing.

Okay your RIGHT! I definitly could have been more clearer! I was trying to say the same thing you said. The acts that I were referring to were acts like Beyonce, Jay Z, Justin although they might do staduims there audiences are not as big as Madonna, U2, Bruce etc..... MY BADDDDDDDD

the bigger question is though, not just who does them, who can actually sell them out. this jayz timberlake thing is gonna be interesting, it will sell out Yankee Stadium, but honestly, the yankees do that when they play the Red Sox, its gonna be harder going into other stadiums for them, and alot of others struggled selling tickets in stadiums, Rihanna tried it and it was a fail, Beyonce a few years back when touring with Alicia Keys and a few others couldnt sell out MSG, sorry but that is kind of "telling". The only ones that pretty much bring in and sell out are the old faithfuls, like the stones and U2 and Jovi things like that. Also combining a bunch of "marquee" artists to me isnt really "that" artist selling out, Kanye had U2 over in Europe and the fool thought people were lining up for him, come on Kanye, really.

As for stadiums, again there are levels, some people call MSG a stadium, but for some shows certain areas of that venue are not even on sale, so most of the shows there arent even 20,000 people, to me thats not stadium, stadium to me is football arenas even baseball ones, though alot of baseball ones have dropped their capacities because of jacked up prices, and basketball and hockey venues to me arent stadium sized.

lastdecember said:

the bigger question is though, not just who does them, who can actually sell them out. this jayz timberlake thing is gonna be interesting, it will sell out Yankee Stadium, but honestly, the yankees do that when they play the Red Sox, its gonna be harder going into other stadiums for them, and alot of others struggled selling tickets in stadiums, Rihanna tried it and it was a fail, Beyonce a few years back when touring with Alicia Keys and a few others couldnt sell out MSG, sorry but that is kind of "telling". The only ones that pretty much bring in and sell out are the old faithfuls, like the stones and U2 and Jovi things like that. Also combining a bunch of "marquee" artists to me isnt really "that" artist selling out, Kanye had U2 over in Europe and the fool thought people were lining up for him, come on Kanye, really.

As for stadiums, again there are levels, some people call MSG a stadium, but for some shows certain areas of that venue are not even on sale, so most of the shows there arent even 20,000 people, to me thats not stadium, stadium to me is football arenas even baseball ones, though alot of baseball ones have dropped their capacities because of jacked up prices, and basketball and hockey venues to me arent stadium sized.

Good Point.

The legends are bringing in the 70,000 + people.

lastdecember said:

the bigger question is though, not just who does them, who can actually sell them out. this jayz timberlake thing is gonna be interesting, it will sell out Yankee Stadium, but honestly, the yankees do that when they play the Red Sox, its gonna be harder going into other stadiums for them, and alot of others struggled selling tickets in stadiums, Rihanna tried it and it was a fail, Beyonce a few years back when touring with Alicia Keys and a few others couldnt sell out MSG, sorry but that is kind of "telling". The only ones that pretty much bring in and sell out are the old faithfuls, like the stones and U2 and Jovi things like that. Also combining a bunch of "marquee" artists to me isnt really "that" artist selling out, Kanye had U2 over in Europe and the fool thought people were lining up for him, come on Kanye, really.

As for stadiums, again there are levels, some people call MSG a stadium, but for some shows certain areas of that venue are not even on sale, so most of the shows there arent even 20,000 people, to me thats not stadium, stadium to me is football arenas even baseball ones, though alot of baseball ones have dropped their capacities because of jacked up prices, and basketball and hockey venues to me arent stadium sized.

Yes. You're right... there is only a bunch of true stadium artists. And with that I also mean artists who can do stadiums wherever they go, not confined to a certain territory. And yes, of course. stadium is a football stadium or baseball stadium. A venue that holds upwards of 30.000 people (50.000 usually). MSG ain't no stadium.

Wow, Kanye really thought that U2 fans were there to see him?? I pity the fool. Opening acts are a nice add on, but really, at the end of the day they don't matter.

@mjscarousal

Okay, I got you.