Can U2 Reach Me Now? Ticket Sales, Radio Airplay Down in U.S.
It's a challenging time for U2 as the band prepares for the upcoming Innocence + Experience tour. From personal challenges like mourning the loss of close friends to Bono's recovery from his bicycle accident injuries, and professional challenges like getting terrestrial airplay and selling concert tickets for a tour that hasn't been well defined, the last few months have not been easy.
The band has historically counted on support from the U.S. market, carefully crafting a strategy in the early days to solidify a base that would carry the band throughout its career. There have been bumps in the road, especially during the PopMart tour in 1997. However, the band rebounded during the following decade on the strength of the commercial releases and sold out tours. Unfortunately, that rebound trend is not the case a month before the band embarks on a limited-engagement world tour.
Tour Ticket Sales
Surprisingly, only three U.S. dates for the Innocence + Experience tour are sold out on Ticketmaster as of April 7. While nine shows have less than 100 face value tickets remaining, many have far more. As expected, Saturday night shows sold well, as did the first set of dates announced in a city. Anyone can search for remaining inventory by clicking on the Ticketmaster sales link for the show, select "resale off", then see the blue dots around the arena when zooming in on a section.
When the tour was announced on Dec. 3, the only U.S. shows to sell out in the first week of sales were July 10 and 11 in Boston. A week later, additional nights were put on sale in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and New York City, which was when the July 18 show firmly sold out. On Jan. 26, night five in Los Angeles was announced. The final night in Chicago and seventh night in New York City were announced on Feb. 3. The last New York City concert was announced on March 8, where Live Nation and Madison Square Garden also offered their own set of presales on March 10 and 11.
Market saturation became an issue in Los Angeles and Chicago, which forced the band to schedule only five nights in those cities. This puts a crimp in the tour as it was supposed to be booked in pairs based on the tour's design. Adam Clayton told Q magazine last year, "We're booking the tour in pairs of shows. We want to have two different shows. That's the plan at this point, but it could all change." This was also reiterated in the formal tour announcement with a quote from Bono stating, "We are going to try to have a completely different feeling from night one to night two ... and have some fun playing with the idea of innocence and experience." The saturation issue was a determining factor in adding the two nights in Denver, which were added on March 17 and March 25. The tour production needed to travel east from Los Angeles, making Denver an easy stop along the route.
In reviewing the inventory on Ticketmaster's web site on April 2, 2015, there were still over 10,000 tickets available at face value in the site's inventory for U.S. dates. (Denver is not included because Altitude ticketing service does not allow consumers to see all remaining inventory. As of this writing, pairs of $275 tickets are still available for the June 6 show and groups of eight $275 tickets are still available for June 7.)
While 10,000 tickets is relatively low all things considered, it is not what people expected from a band of U2's stature performing arena shows in major markets on a limited engagement basis. Based on U2's solid track record for arenas, along with the popularity of the U2 360 tour, the odds makers would not have predicted that the U.S. market couldn't sell out.
While the ticket numbers are low, it's the seats in the $275-$595 range that are taking a large hit. Based on the April 2 inventory, there are close to $2.2 million in unsold tickets, with Chicago and Los Angeles taking the biggest hit.
U2ieTour Revenue graphic
The resale market may impact the band's ability to move the remaining inventory. Ticketmaster's TM+ reselling service allows buyers to select from the same inventory page as the face value tickets. Those tickets are available on Ticketmaster's site by selecting "resale on" and viewing the red dots in the arena after zooming in on a section. Buyers will not want a face value ticket in the upper levels when, for a bit more money, they can buy a ticket in a more desirable location. TM+ is one of many reselling options available, and based on the inventory found on the national reselling sites, eBay and even on Living Social, it will be a harder sell for U2 and Ticketmaster to offload the remaining face value inventory. For the first time in decades, could the tour see only partially-filled U.S. arenas because resellers could not find buyers and whole rows or sections remain unsold? Time will tell.
Does the success of the 360 tour have a negative impact on ticket sales for the Innocence + Experience tour? Could it be that many music fans have crossed U2 off their concert "bucket list," and the 360 experience is what the concertgoer wants as a lasting memory? WBWC's Todd Richards, co-host of the long-running U2 Radio Marathon, hopes not. "That's so unfair to go 'Well, that's their own fault. They were too successful the last tour,'" he says. "Trust me, I know when we get through those doors and we hand them our ticket and it goes 'be-doop' and we go in, we're going to go out of our minds because we haven't seen our favorite band in over three years."
There's still very little known about the tour right now. U2 has yet to define how night one will differ from night two, nor has the band released any concept art about the stage design. All people know is the design found on Ticketmaster. U2 is relying strongly on the band's reputation to move the concert tickets.
