" Stones 'smash own concert record'"

[phanan]

Oh, I definitely think so. Add up all the shows in the U.S., and their attendance was far higher than the Stones. Even with the higher price section, they'd be able to do it.

 

[Chizip]

this also brings up another question. which is more impressive, playing to more people or earning a higher gross?

is playing to 1 million people with tickets costing a million dollars each which grosses a bajillion dollars more impressive than playing to 1 billion people and only charging 1 penny per person and making only 3 dollars? (my math may be a little off)

personally i think playing to a lot of people while be able to keep ticket prices high is more impressive, because i mean anybody could play to a lot of people for really cheap.

of course you could say a band intentionally keeping prices down for their fans is very admirable.

remember when the elevation tour prices came out and people thought 135 dollars was absolutely ridiculous? now we think 170 bucks is a bargain. man i miss the 25 dollar zootv days.

 

[U2Man]

This reminds me of an old thread in the tour section.

I think any band will charge whatever the think they can while still selling all tickets. Some - like U2 - may be a bit more cautious than others but as soon as Paul McGuiness & co. believe that prices could be raised without running the risk of empty stadiums/arenas, well, we will see higher prices.

 

[U2Man]

From a business perspective, what the Rolling Stones are doing is impressive.

From any other perspective, it would be more impressive to have more reasonable ticket prices

 

[STING2]

this also brings up another question. which is more impressive, playing to more people or earning a higher gross?

is playing to 1 million people with tickets costing a million dollars each which grosses a bajillion dollars more impressive than playing to 1 billion people and only charging 1 penny per person and making only 3 dollars? (my math may be a little off)

personally i think playing to a lot of people while be able to keep ticket prices high is more impressive, because i mean anybody could play to a lot of people for really cheap.

of course you could say a band intentionally keeping prices down for their fans is very admirable.

remember when the elevation tour prices came out and people thought 135 dollars was absolutely ridiculous? now we think 170 bucks is a bargain. man i miss the 25 dollar zootv days.

Despite some of the high ticket prices for the Rolling Stones tour in the USA, most tickets were not that expensive. While there were $400 dollar tickets, remember that the average price to see the Rolling Stones in North America was $134. For U2 it the average was $97 dollars.

Keep in mind that every U2 show was soldout typically within minutes or hours. There was only a few shows that took a few weeks to sellout. Several Rolling Stones shows failed to sellout and many sellouts took a good bit of time to achieve.

While U2 sold seats behind the stage in the Arena's, the Rolling Stones did not try to, the first time the Rolling Stones have not attempted to.

U2 outgrossed the Rolling Stones in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington DC markets just to name a few, in 2005.

U2 could have played more shows in North America in 2005 if they had wanted to and there was time. U2 failed to satisfy the market in most regions as evidenced by some of the fastest sellouts in their tour history. Compare that with the Rolling Stones who struggled to fill two stadium shows in San Francisco even with the home town act, METALLICA, supporting them.

When you see the U2 results for North America in 2005, you have to remember that U2 could have played many more shows and did not fully satisfy demand. The Stones on the other hand took longer to sellout and did not even attempt to sell seats behind the stage in the arena's. It appears the Stones either satisfied demand, or came very close to it.

In the end, the Stones may still be the stronger touring artist in North America, but only by an inch. Contrast that with the sales of the latest album in the United States, A Bigger Bang, which has been out for four months now and has only sold 451,000 copies. BOMB sold about that many copies in its first 24 hours of release in the United States.

Worldwide, the situation is not known yet because the Stones have yet to play shows outside North America yet. As of right now though, U2, not the Rolling Stones hold the record for the highest GROSSING tour in European history. Also consider that U2 achieved that record by only playing 32 shows in Europe, all of which soldout in minutes or hours of going on sale. Australia and New Zealand have never had such rapid and high sales levels for a tour. Its also been reported the U2 shows in Argentina are selling faster than the Stones shows there.

The highest Grossing tour is picked as the top tour, but one needs to consider how many shows were played, how fast they soldout, and if there was more demand out there, in order to get a more accurate comparison.

 

[STING2]

the most important job for the lead singer of a rock band is to entertain.

no i was not able to make it to europe... i don't have that kind of income to just up and travel to europe for a show. i'm still holding out an outside hope that i could make it to hawaii, but i'll have to keep that listed as unlikely for now.

so all i can go on is video and pictures. yes, i know... this is not as good as actually being there. but i highly doubt there is anything in the outdoor production of vertigo that can rival the moving stage of the bigger bang tour. it really is something to behold, seeing the entire center section of the stage, with the band on it, lift up and move OVER the crowd, the length of a football field, and park it's self at the other side. that pretty much takes the cake over a couple of ramps a big screen.

look... i'll say it again- i personaly enjoyed the vertigo shows more, and would rather see a vertigo show... but that's only because i'm a u2 fanatic, while just a rolling stones fan. but how i would long for u2 to try to do something as huge as popmart & zoo tv again.

even in pictures, the bigger bang's outdoor and indoor production is more impressive than that of vertigo's. they were even able to convert the moving stage to an indoor setting.

outdoor

Indoor

Its cheaper to fly from New York City to Dublin than it is to fly from New York City to Hawaii. I don't think you would find much difference between in cost between going to see U2 in Dublin or going to see U2 in Hawaii.

The lead singer's job is to sing, entertaining comes second. Just ask any serious band whether they value someone who can really sing, or someone who can do various jumps and dances. Jumping and dancing around does not contribute to the music in the way that singing does. Would you really prefer someone who can't sing but can jump and dance well over someone who can sing, but can't jump and dance well? I think you'll agree that singing is the most important job of the "singer".

Well, the stage you showed just looks like a B-stage that moves out over the crowd. If U2 wanted to do that for their show they could. Now if the entire stage had moved over the crowd to the back, then I would agree that would really be something new and exciting, although I don't know how they would do that.

As for pictures during the show, both productions look impressive, and I think one would be kidding themselves if they thought one was clearly superior to the other.

U2 is very involved, to the degree a band can be, with the production of their stage, I'm not sure how involved the Stones are with theirs.

 

[Hallucination]

Hey did nobody read my post? It doesn't matter who made more money, U2 was more in demand. Click the link
http://netmusiccountdown.com/inc/news_article.php?id=9410

 

[bollox]

does this pissing contest even matter? i honestly couldn't care who got more rich middle-aged assholes to shell out more of their disposable income.