bridonohue said:
don't overestimate u2's ability to sell out stadiums, even in big cities. in nyc, during zoo tv, they sold out 2 shows at giants, and one at yankee stadium, but the second night at yankee stadium was not sold out. during popmart, they sold out 2 shows at giants, but the third night was pathetic. there wasn't a single seat sold on the third level and that was after thousands of tickets were given away free by radio stations. In Philly during popmart a second show that was reserved was cancelled because of weak demand. boston only had 2 shows, they had three during zoo tv. only one show was played in dc when they had 2 during zoo tv. popmart stadium ticket sales are even more disappointing since there was no arena shows to help meet demand. i love u2, but i do not think they can fill stadiums like they used to. nobody can. bruce does it through a loyal fan base that will see him for the next twenty years, even if he never releases another disc, u2's following is different. paul mcguiness is an incredibly smart business man. he doesn't want to oversaturate a market, he always wants demand to exceed supply, he said as much in u2 show. the last tour brought them the greatest profits of their careers and critical aclaim. there is no need for them to try stadiums in the us.
During ZOO TV in New York City, all four stadium shows were soldout. "Amusement Business" which tracks the concert industry shows that all 104,000 tickets put on sale for the two combined Yankee Stadium shows soldout. They may not have been playing the absolute full capacity of the stadium, but every ticket that was put on sell was sold. Thats a confirmed fact from Amusement Business records. The band were planning to do 5 stadium shows in New York City for POPMART prior to the release of the album and tickets going on sell, based on their past performance in that city.
The POP album and POPMART tour saw demand for U2 tickets drop by around 50% across the United States. Still, this level of demand was far in excess of most other bands except the Rolling Stones and perhaps Pink Floyd(who were essentially disbanded by then) in the USA. World Wide, the only band able to beat U2 overall in Stadium concert business peformance was the Rolling Stones.
On POPMART in New York City, the first two shows did well and the third night was indeed behind, but once again how many artist out there are able to sell enough tickets to play THREE shows at GIANTS Stadium let alone one show! Friends that I have that went to the third show said the stadium looked 1/2 to 2/3s full. Around 30,000 people were there for the third night.
But remember, POPMART was a tour where demand for U2 tickets was down by 50% in the USA. Still, they soldout two shows in Boston, almost three in Chicago, and had great attendance in Miami, San Francisco, Washington DC, and soldout shows in LA and Philadelphia.
Worldwide, POPMART was the 4th highest GROSSING TOUR of all time with $171 million dollars worth of tickets sold. All U2 concerts in South America and most in Europe were sellouts. All this despite POP have sales that were much weaker than Joshua Tree or POPMART. U2 played a soldout show in Reggio Italy to 150,000 people on the POPMART tour. That show was the largest paying concert for a single band(no opening acts) in history!
Bruce Springsteen does incredible Business with Stadiums in the North Eastern part of the United States, but THATS IT! Bruce Springsteen failed to sellout out a single Stadium show in LA on his last tour! Outside of the North Eastern part of the United States, U2 would outsell Bruce anywhere on the planet, and I have the boxscore results from Amusement Business which show that fact.
By the way, the band is already booked to play stadiums all across EUROPE this summer! Paul McGuiness is a smart man and he is not going to have U2 play a tour where they FAIL to meet the demand that is out there. U2 on the last tour could have done stadiums in many of the major markets in the USA with attendance easily outstripping the attendance for the POPMART shows. But of course, when planning that tour, no one could be sure about what the demand would be like, so an Arena tour was planned.
Realize that this is U2's fastest selling album EVER in history. What influences the type of tour a band will do is the level of demand. The album sales of "BOMB" show that demand currently for U2 is stronger in the USA and elsewhere than at any time in their career. U2 booked a stadium tour on the Joshua Tree Tour when they had only 2 to 3 million albums in the USA of the Joshua Tree album. Same with Achtung, the stadium leg of the tour was booked around the time the band were at the 2.5 million to 3 million mark of the new album being sold. U2 reached these marks 5 to 6 months after the albums were released.
Currently, "BOMB" has already shipped over 3 million copies in the United States after only 4 weeks and at the 5th week mark has sold over 2,100,000 copies. At the current rate of sales, it will be at the same point in three weeks when stadium shows were booked for Joshua Tree and ZOO TV tours in the United States. Within two months, this album has provided the level of Demand it took Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby 5 months to build.
None of this guarentees that there will be stadium shows in the United States, but think about why the band moved to stadiums in 1987 and went back to them in 1992 in the United States. Strong album sales is a huge indicater and a "warm up Arena tour" is another. If the album continues to outpace Joshua Tree and Achtung as it is currently doing, plus the speed of sellouts on the Arena tour first leg is impressive enough, then we will see Stadium shows in the USA in the fall.
But if McGuinness plays multiple arena shows on the spring leg in many markets, then that will mean that regardless of increased demand, McGuinness has decided to keep the tour indoors. Playing to many arena shows in on the first leg would hurt sales for a fall stadium tour of the USA.
Even with the level of demand U2 had on POPMART in the USA, the band was able to sellout stadium shows in the United States. The new album is going to sell 3 times as many copies in the USA as POP did just this year. The new album has currently sold more than twice as many copies as ATYCLB had at this point and is all saw outselling Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby at the 5 week mark!
Will know in about 10 days if there will be a stadium tour in the fall or not. If McGuinness has the band playing multiple arena shows in many cities that would typically only get 1 or 2 stadium shows, on the the first spring leg, then stadiums in the fall for the USA will probably not happen. But if we see a first leg arena tour like the ZOO TV first leg arena tour, then stadiums will probably be played in the fall for the USA.