U2FanPeter said:
U2 initially only booked a 3/4 Stadium(baseball configuration) for the original Spring 2006 Hawaii concert. They went full house(football configuration) when the show was delayed 8 months and Pearl Jam was added. This would have changed sightlines for those that bought seated tickets when it was first annouced would come to Hawaii.
U2 may have changed plans for the OZ leg of Popmart. Move Perth to the Arena and perhaps skip NZ altogether.
My point is, was some of the empty seats on Popmart caused by over-ambitious and "irresponsible" promoters rather than a so-so reaction to the actual POP album and tour itself?
Do you think U2 could have sustained a full stadium show each in Vancouver/Seattle/Oregon if it were 1987 or 1992?
u2fp
Well, there was only one promoter for the POPMART tour and that was Michael Cohl. Prior to that U2 had used a different promoter in each market they played. But U2 found that they could make huge sums of money and have a better managed tour overall if they went with a single promoter giving them a huge guarantee up front.
The fact is, by 1997, demand for U2 had dropped considerably in the United States from where it had been prior to the release of Zooropa. Zooropa was the album that actually caused U2's popularity level in the United States to fall off considerably. It only sold 2 million copies and many of the people who did buy, did not like it, at least not back then. The drop off in sales outside the United States was not as bad, and the album was more popular and respected with those who did buy it.
The next thing that contributed to the decline was the long time off between tours. The time between ZOO TV North America and POPMART North America was the longest time away in U2's history. If Zooropa had been an album that sold better and was popular and respected by the fans, this may not have been a factor at all, and may have even increased demand for a tour in 1997, but it was the opposite, and the long time off just compounded the problem.
Despite all this, if U2 had released an album that the fans and general public supported and respected like Joshua, Rattle, or Achtung, the already decreased levels of popularity and demand could have been turned around. Instead, POP was released and sold worse than Zooropa and had at least 50% who actually bought it at the time, not liking it at all. Those that were hoping that Zooropa was just a one time division, felt the band was now moving headlong in a direction that simply did not like and were unlikely to support.
So in retrospect, the band was already in trouble from a popularity standpoint prior to the release of POP, at least in the United States. The POP album continued that decline. In the United States in 1997, no one had ever charged $52.50 for a nose blead seat in a football stadium. At each show, roughly 95% of the tickets were sold at the $52.50 price. Only a few sections at the back of the stadium were sold at the $37.50 price. So with there already being huge decrease in demand, U2 came in with the highest average priced ticket for a stadium tour ever, at that point.
The tour promoters did the best they could with the situation, and I actually think they did an excellant job considering the odds that were against them. The overall tour played to almost 4 million people and was the 2nd highest grossing tour in history at that time worldwide and the 5 highest grossing tour in North American history.
I do think that U2 could have played a full stadium show in Vancouver, Seattle, and Oregon back in 1987 and 1992. In 1992, the band played two soldout shows at the Tacoma Dome as well as an arena show and two stadium shows in Vancouver. In 1987, U2's popularity in Canada was probably at its peak. They should have played shows Washington State and Oregon, as the Vancouver show would have soldout without fans from Seattle or the rest of the Northwest traveling there for the show.
