Kansas City - 1,000 people shy of a sellout?

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Angel

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I just saw that at u2tours.com and that seems unreal? I think a lot of us could safely say that they wish U2 tix were that easy to come by in their home town...
Anyone from Kansas know why this was so? Just not a huge fan base? Craziness.

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"It's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight..."
 
Originally posted by Angel:
I just saw that at u2tours.com and that seems unreal? I think a lot of us could safely say that they wish U2 tix were that easy to come by in their home town...
Anyone from Kansas know why this was so? Just not a huge fan base? Craziness.


No one from Kansas will be able to answer your question, but maybe the people from Missouri can...It just seems that certain areas of the Midwest have a hard time selling out U2 shows...It may also have hurt to have them playing St Louis the following night...

aaron
 
Originally posted by the_rehearsal:
No one from Kansas will be able to answer your question, but maybe the people from Missouri can...

Yeah, Missouri... that's what I meant! I usually pride myself on my geography but I am guilty of this one....



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"It's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight..."
 
I just dont want to hear people complaining on the next tour that they are not playing KC. Here is your answer as to why. I predicted it previously. So far this is the only show on the entire tour not to sellout and it wasnt even close. I'am sure it was a great show but dont expect U2 back in that market when you cant sellout an arena (or even come close to selling it out).

[This message has been edited by Blue Room (edited 11-28-2001).]
 
Originally posted by Blue Room:
Here is your answer as to why.

Hey Blue Room- where's my answer?
biggrin.gif




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"It's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight..."
 
I'm still wondering why the heck they scheduled 2 shows in Missouri (KC and STL) and didn't play one up in the Twin Cities. We're central for a good deal of the Midwest and some of Canada, and I don't think there would be any problem selling out a show here.

-sula
 
Well... if we are going to start talking about where they should have scheduled gigs... what about the whole Pacific Northwest? We're talking Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. At least one gig in that vicinity could have easily sold out within minutes.
Not too mention Canada got royally screwed this leg. But back to Kansas City- just seems like a real shame that's all.

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"It's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight..."
 
Surprisingly enough - the Tampa show is not sold out at the present time. I'm thinking people are just consumed by the holidays and low on cash, or they just don't want to go to a kick-arse concert. Ah well. C'est la Vie.
 
Ummm there's probably a couple reasons for this little bit of sadness...

but first I'd like to point out that it kicked the crap out of the Denver show I went to and this was with an inferior view of the stage against it... ahem... anyway

the top reasons...

1. St. Louis the next day. A popular reason sited. And it's true, Missouri twice in two days is pushing it. Especially considering reasons two and three...

2. A lot of fans here already took the trip to see them elsewhere at the begining of the tour, since we all thought it wasn't gonna happen for us this time round...

3. No buzz on this concert AT ALL!!!! I live in Olathe Kansas which is basically one of those little cities on the outskirts of Kansas City and I can tell you no one knew they were coming!!! Minimal talk on the radio. Heck, the radio stations were errorniously stating the show had sold out within 30 minutes of going on sale. (obviously not true) and that No Doubt was opening. (also not true...). Everyone I knew that was a 'mild' U2 fan were unaware that they were even coming until I told them...

anyway, that's a few thoughts....

I think there are fans out here, but shows here also tend to never sell out right away, they benefit from tickets being available for some time and then the fence sitters finally get their butts in gear...

Bruce Springsteen, Tool, heck, even Tina Turner all sold more tickets due to their having a well planned out advertising blitz in this town... but who knows, someone else may come along and tell me I'm crazy, but that's how it felt from here.....
 
Originally posted by sulawesigirl4:
I'm still wondering why the heck they scheduled 2 shows in Missouri (KC and STL) and didn't play one up in the Twin Cities. We're central for a good deal of the Midwest and some of Canada, and I don't think there would be any problem selling out a show here.

-sula

YEAH! I would have been there in a heartbeat!

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Yeah, there were 4 empty rows of seats around where I was sitting at the show, so it definitely wasn't sold out. But I really think the main reason why is b/c U2 kept saying the second U.S. leg was the end of the tour. Of course, if you're not a U2 freak that reads the rumours on the internet everyday, you wouldn't know that they had extended the tour yet again. So most people probably figured they weren't coming here and went somewhere else. Plus they announced the dates right before they went on sale - not much time to get the word out.

U2 could have easily sold out Kemper w/ more publicity. On both the Zoo TV tour and Popmart, they sold nearly 40,000 tickets to each show in KC. If anything, they've gotten more fans since Popmart, so I just think there wasn't enough publicity for this show.
 
They couldn't have been too concerned about sellouts for these last shows given the way it was handled. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that last minutes shows, in weaker markets, in the middle of the holiday season during a recession, are going to have a hard time selling out.
rolleyes.gif


Maybe they just wanted to keep playing and hit a few places they had missed, or only played once. The tour has already been pronounced a huge success in the media so they don't need to worry about a few shows not selling out.
 
Originally posted by Krasno The Great:
Its in Blue Room's original post.

You know Krasno, I don't have feckin clue what I ever did to you, but you sure are an asshole to me and I am sick of it.
Blue Room's post didn't really have an aswer in it.



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"It's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight..."
 
I guess I need to type s-l-o-w-e-r for some people to understand!
wink.gif
The reason they wont return is as I said, they cant even sellout a small arena. Why play one night in a market that has a small arena and cant even sell that out. They could have played another show in Chicago and sold out easily selling 20,000 tickets. KC is a prime example why acts dont always go to secondary markets. Some fans in the area were slamming U2 for not going there and saying they would sellout easily.

Regarding the Popmart tour, the official attendence for Popmart in KC was actually 25,000 not 40,000. The entire upper deck of Arrowhead was empty. It just is not a big U2 market and I was very surprised they scheduled a show there again. I dont think they will again now, that was my point.

Tampa is no surprise. I indicated previously that KC and Tampa were going to be problems as far as selling out. Tampa had the worst attendance of the Popmart tour in 1997. 18,000 people showed up in a stadium that seated 55,000 for a concert and that show had 8 months to sell. So Tampa not selling out is no surprise at all.

[This message has been edited by Blue Room (edited 11-28-2001).]
 
Guys, the main issue here is TICKET PRICES. In New York and Chicago, you don't blink twice about paying $85 - $130 for a topnotch act in theater, music, etc. The top 9-10 metropolitan areas in the U.S. have lots of yuppies who will pay the price.

In St. Louis (where I am), K.C., and other small cities, $100 for a concert simply sounds insane. There just aren't enough people in St. Louis that can afford it, who are rock fans. I've been trying to sell Gold Circle pairs to friends at under face value for weeks - every single person asks me if I'm deranged to be paying so much.

If the average ticket price was $40-$60, all these small cities would sell out easily. U2-awareness is not as high here as in Boston or other cities, but many people are indeed talking about their appearance here. But they can't afford it.
 
To head off any unneeded controversy - that was not meant to be a slight against yuppies or anyone else!
 
Originally posted by sv:

In St. Louis (where I am), K.C., and other small cities, $100 for a concert simply sounds insane. There just aren't enough people in St. Louis that can afford it, who are rock fans. I've been trying to sell Gold Circle pairs to friends at under face value for weeks - every single person asks me if I'm deranged to be paying so much.

See, that is the kind of answer I was looking for. No offence Blue Room, but you still didn't really answer the question. My question was why the small market? The fact that Kansas City has a small U2 market is fairly obvious just looking at the tickets sold for last nights gig. Not why they won't come back etc... According to your stats, it's fairly unbelievable that they came back there at all give the low attendence for Popmart.
I guess all I am trying to get at is why such low attendence? Are Kansas City citizens big Britney Spears fans or something? etc... I was more interested in demographic reasons like sv has kindly pointed out. I am sure the average age in population could possibly be a factor too. I guess I just find it hard to believe that U2 can't sell out 18,000 seats this leg of the tour that's all. But the money thing, yeah, a huge factor at play here I believe.



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"It's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight..."
 
sv has a good point to make about why tickets in KC didn't seem to sell. To many people who live here, $140 is an awful lot of money for a concert ticket, and the $225 that the scalpers (GAO! This is not a Chiefs-Broncos game, so stop charging those prices!
mad.gif
)wanted initially is just plain ridiculous. No wonder the ticket sales stalled! (On a intriguing side note regarding ticket prices -- I noticed that almost all of the cars in the parking lot had Kansas license plates, with very few from Missouri, where Kemper actually is! Kansas is by far the richer of the two states.)

Another factor, though, that might have affected ticket sales is a general fiscal conservatism common to this region of the country. People might have been able
to afford these tickets, but the prices left them in sticker shock. They chose to spend their money on other items, which again means empty seats...



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...Edge is not of our planet, Larry is a warrior, Adam has seen things that we may never dream of and whatever you do, don't get in a car with Bono.

--Danny Eccleston, from the Elevation tour book

[This message has been edited by Burning_Azalea (edited 11-28-2001).]
 
Originally posted by chirpie:



2. A lot of fans here already took the trip to see them elsewhere at the begining of the tour, since we all thought it wasn't gonna happen for us this time round...



I agree with chirpie. I planned on going to see them in Chicago (which didn't work out because propaganda ran out of GA tix). If I would have known farther in advance that they were going to KC then I would have tried to get KC tix instead of Chicago tix. By the time I heard about the KC shows I already had an i'mnotevengonnabotherit'shopeless attitude about trying to get tickets.
frown.gif
 
Originally posted by kariatari:

By the time I heard about the KC shows I already had an i'mnotevengonnabotherit'shopeless attitude about trying to get tickets.
frown.gif


Awww that's sad, did you end up going?

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"It's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight..."

[This message has been edited by Angel (edited 11-28-2001).]
 
Originally posted by Angel:
Well... if we are going to start talking about where they should have scheduled gigs... what about the whole Pacific Northwest? We're talking Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. At least one gig in that vicinity could have easily sold out within minutes.


That's what I'm saying.

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Remember the goul.

Shake n' bake
Do whatever it takes
 
Here are some stats on U2 concert attendance in St Louis and Kansas City since the Joshua Tree tour.

Joshua Tree Tour:

St. Louis Arena October 25, 1987 Attendance: 18,237(sellout)
Kansas City Kemper Arena October 26, 1987 Attendance:17,168(sellout)

ZOO TV TOUR:

St. Louis Busch Memorial Stadium September 20, 1992 Attendance:48,054(sellout)
Kansas City Arrowhead Stadium October 18, 1992 Attendance:37,867

POPMART TOUR:

Kansas City Arrowhead Stadium May 19, 1997 Attendance:23,709
St. Louis Busch Memorial Stadium November 1997 Attendance: 30,000(estimated)

ELEVATION TOUR:

Kansas City Kemper Arena November 27, 2001 Attendance: 14,500(estimated)
St. Louis Arena November 2001 Attendance: not reported yet.

I think the main reason Kansas did not sellout is because the show was announced only 2 weeks before it would happen. It took several months to get 23,000 fans into Arrowhead Stadium back in 1997 at much lower ticket prices.
The second reason of course is the close date in St. Louis. On POPMART these two shows were 6 months apart.
While its only 14,500 in attendance the GROSS is sure to top the 1,000,000 dollar mark. Not to many people turn down that kind of money which is why U2 went to Kansas City with only 2 weeks promotion.
Despite these factors I still expected a sellout because of U2 increased popularity. Even though it was not a sellout, they did come close, only 2,668 tickets unsold, and most of those behind the stage.
Just think about how much they Grossed in this small City in the midwest with a low cost of living!
 
Angel, I didn't end up going *sniff sniff*
frown.gif
. I couldn't find anyone to go with me because it was on such short notice. But it's ok...because of my severe case of Elevation Deprivation I treated myself to a U2 shopping spree on Amazon
smile.gif
.
 
Originally posted by kariatari:
...because of my severe case of Elevation Deprivation I treated myself to a U2 shopping spree on Amazon
smile.gif
.


U2 shopping sprees rock!
biggrin.gif
They always make me feel better. Always. lol Well, if I can give ya one piece of advice, next time- just go alone! I went to a Smashing Pumpkins gig alone years ago 'cause all my friends were in the middle of exams or something but I went anyway, and had a fab time. But I suppose the solo thing isn't for everyone. Well here's to hoping they come back soon!


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"It's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight..."
 
I'm sure both the closeness in time and geography affected attendance at both these shows (and dates--holiday season, after all). Plus, as has been mentioned, the relatively short lead time on ticket sales and in some places, the lack of publicity (I know we didn't hear much about the show here--we're three hours away, not much farther than we are from Chicago, and we hear about shows in Chicago often).

Of course if they'd decided to do another show in a place like Chicago, it would have sold out...but Chicago has a much larger immediate metro area from which to draw than either KC or STL. And one thing that no one has mentioned yet--the weather. It's November, a time of historically unpredictable weather in this part of the Midwest--and if you have to drive a significant distance across wide open spaces to get to a show (as you may have with the KC and STL shows, because the next closest metro areas really aren't that close) in the winter, you're going to consider that when deciding whether or not to purchase tickets. I know I did. And we got lucky there, despite the pouring rain, as it stayed just above freezing for most of the day/night. A few degrees colder, and the roads would have been treacherous.

I still think the turnout was impressive, given all the factors.
 
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