Acrobat, the demand is still there, no doubt about it, and if ticket prices went to $100 or less we'd have a repeat of those tours. The fans are out there waiting, waiting for those prices to come down. Someone needs to get word to LN. O$seary (heck, let's just say LN, he's just a puppet anyway.) U2 have not decreased in popularity, at all.
Maybe someday these dickheads will realize that middle class buyers make up the bulk of the music industry, just as a large and stable middle class provides the tax dollars that makes countries and industries function. The concert industry is like infrastructure, and if you want to shaft the middle class, that's fine, but just don't expect the places you were able to make money from, like the concert industry, to exist for much longer. This isn't like Hollywood, you can't shift your arenas and stadiums over to China or shaft your traditional audience for a "global" market. You'll have to come up with another model, that ensures that a much smaller number of overall consumers can continue to support that upkeep of that massive infrastructure. And I'm not talking about buildings here. It's like the Frequent Flyer Club...I think this yr frequent flyer membership has been changed to not how many miles traveled but how many flights you take. Fewer but more expensive flights in the long run. How will for planes?
Plus hasn't it gotten through their heads that the economy crashed in 2008-9, so many former "upper middle class" in 2007, aren't anymore. the stories I hear now about suburban poverty...
Once the music industry had a "production model", and despite a few glitches, it worked fantastic for yrs. An artist graduated from clubs to small 2000-seat arenas to larger arenas to places like MSG, and from there, a rarified few got to stadiums. The ones who got to stadiums became the artists who sold out those stadiums for decades, b/c the audience gradually increased. The high "childhood mortality" rate of acts, so to speak, ensured that the survivors reached superstardom, so to speak. Because the artists had to play instruments and thus prove themelves to fans, the strong survived. The mediocre thrived in this market too, but b/c we had a strong middle class, people would shell out for them. This slow growth rate also gave acts time to nurture their talent.
Someone earlier posted a list of 2014 hot artists bundled together into a nice little package and trotted out to perform in an arena. Most of those artists belong nowhere near an arena yet---they should only be at the "Palace Theater" stage at this point in their careers. Not all, but most. They don't even know themselves very well yet, so why try to inflict them on a mass audience?
I've become more picky with my concert dollars. if there's a new artist out there that's worth writing a book about, I'll make an effort to see them live. There's a dude named Mackelmore I'm dying to see, and all on an electrifying 30-second clip from a show in Europe. STanding there in blis while the audience roared out the song, fantastic, it looked like a clip from the UF tour. But would I see him at $300? No way.
As far as U2 goes...if LN keep the prices at $300 for months..fine. I'll pay for my ticket via "installment payment", saving up for months at a time. But at the end of 3-4 months, I damnwell want them to allow me to choose my expensive seat, just for having me wait so long. If they judge demand by the kind of frontloaded sales U2 had in the past, they'll be sorely disappointed if they continue this model. But the demand is still there. That's the tragic part. And the shows? Meh. Those rich folks, most of them, aren't fans, but folk who snared those coveted "bragging rights." It'll make for a boring show, esp the acoustic ones. Not much of a sing-along.
The other bad part is, the amount of tickets sold in the initial shows may determine how many shows get added. How tragic for LA fans if they don't get extra shows, b/c whole swathes of lower levels remain empty. Then everyone gets screwed. More overall tickets sold at lower price is still the best.