Will U2 sell the remaining tickets to make this tour a complete sell out?

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Which is why I about fell over when U2 announced a stadium show for Louisville, Kentucky. SAY WHAT?! I would totally go to that show, but it's on my wife's birthday and we are going away for a weekend getaway.

Definitely a 3rd tier market for them.
 
Which is why I about fell over when U2 announced a stadium show for Louisville, Kentucky. SAY WHAT?! I would totally go to that show, but it's on my wife's birthday and we are going away for a weekend getaway.

Definitely a 3rd tier market for them.

Surprise honey, weekend getaway has been moved to Louisville!
U2 show Friday night, a quickie dinner with Rick Pitino Saturday.
 
Just looked on the site and you might aswell right tampa and houston off. Tickets are all sold at both gigs apart from the very top two corners. This isn't going to be noticeable at all come show time.

The two that have tickets left are Pittsburgh and Kentucky really.

Pittsburgh whole lower bowl and the top tier looking at the stage and more or less completely sold. It's the two side upper tiers that seem to have plenty of tickets left. Can see these blocks being blacked out come show time. Come show time if the upper tier seats are blacked out the stadium will still look really full

Kentuckys the one that has seats empty in the good spots. Lower tier corners, to the side of the band. There's Aren't going to be covered up.

So out of all the shows Kentuckys probably the only one that will be noticeable that all the tickets haven't been sold
 
Yeah a few weeks ago Pittsburgh had like 2500 left, Louisville had 1500. Everyone is dogging Louisville but I think Pittsburgh is gonna be the worst seller of the 2.

Pittsburgh has not sold most of the upper decks on the right and left side. The upper deck in the back sold out because those tickets were cheap, and apparently they should've charged less for the seats that still remain unsold.
 
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Now that the stage is built and rehearsals have started, should we soon see tickets being released? *impatiently drums fingers on desk*
 
Not counting resale and floor tickets, Louisville has 2,800 unsold tickets. So let's assume that in the next 2 month they sell out the floor tickets, and half of those 2800... that's still pretty good. There does not appear to be section of the stadium they have held off from putting on sale, judging by where the resale spots are. The Louisville concert won't be sold out, but if you're at the show it will basically look full.

Pittsburgh has about 1,900 unsold tickets, not counting resale and floor. BUT, there are large swaths of the upper decks that haven't even been put on sale yet, so that number is actually higher. I'd say there are 6-7,000 unsold tickets for Pittsburgh, not counting floor and resale.

I hate to be the guy who pulls out Billboard Boxscore stats, but I must:

In 2015, The Rolling Stones played to 54,000 people at Heinz Field, using an end stage similar to what U2 are using, and I assume that pretty much filled it up. That means that U2 have already sold over 45,000 tickets, and tickets are still selling. There will be a lot of last minute sales too as prices drop and people get swept up in the hype.

In Louisville last year, Kenny Chesney did 42,440 / 45,500 at the same stadium. I predict U2's number to be about the same.

Both are great results for those cities. U2 did play to 55,000+ on the 360 Tour in Pittsburgh, but there were a lot of unsold seats in the upper levels. I saw it with my own eyes, and I would be willing to bet they could have fit another 5,000 people in there.
 
I work for a convention based a couple of hours from Louisville, which will be occurring the weekend before the concert. We have thousands of attendees. If U2 gives us all the tickets for free, we can pass them out to our paying guests as prizes, and I guarantee I can get those seats filled :up:
 
Speaking from the Miami point of view, where I live and am from, a return of U2 next year months after filling out 70,000 seat Hard Rock Stadium seems like overkill.

But a good portion of the seats in the stadium are not open for ticket sales (i.e., behind the stage).

Are you certain there are "70,000 SEATS" available to be filled?
 
Not sure of the big fluctuation, but looked at Tampa today and there are only about 350 tickets. Had been around 1400.
Pittsburgh at 2100 plus whatever is on the floor...
Houston - only showing 1400
KY - 2700 plus the floor.
 
They didn't even sell Auckland out twice on 360.

Well they did if you ignore the stand that was blacked out on the second night. Don't even start me on Coldplay's 100% sold out tour where I was able to buy a GA ticket from the ticket office just before the gates opened.
 
Not sure of the big fluctuation, but looked at Tampa today and there are only about 350 tickets. Had been around 1400.
Pittsburgh at 2100 plus whatever is on the floor...
Houston - only showing 1400
KY - 2700 plus the floor.

I saw the same -- and didn't believe it for a moment.

Sure enough, I go back and check later and there are over 1600 tickets left for Tampa and nearly 3000 for Houston.

I believe this is deliberate manipulation by Ticket Master, but could be wrong.

Regardless, the number of tickets available wildly fluctuates on their site.
 
Scalping is a problem that is limiting attendance or causing hundreds, if not thousands, to just buy super cheap unsold tickets the night of the show. San Jose #2 clearly had a lot of people showing up late for the cheap seats that had obviously bought tickets for next to nothing.

So, in Denver for example, the band easily could have sold way more tickets had the prices not been inflated by scalping. Granted, the prices they were trying to charge for the lower levels were pretty insane to begin with and it took ages to sell a lot of them at many venues, but the nosebleeds were WAY overpriced when they first hit the secondary market. Virtually every single upper section ticket was snapped up by scalpers on the day of, turning these $30-plus fee tickets into $100-plus fees, so I could see a lot of people just balking at paying those prices and not coming back later when the prices dropped. There is no way U2 can't actually sell all the $30 tickets they want right away, but they just aren't getting in the hands of fans until hitting the resale market.

Likewise, the lower seated tickets are way too overpriced for most people. $300-600 is friggin' ridiculous. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, making GA fans pay more is the obvious solution if they want the same profit margins. Those fans are getting a steal with $80 tickets or whatever and would gladly pay $200 for the experience since it's still a much better value in their minds then triple for a seat. U2 would be a bigger act demand-wise if they were willing to make their biggest fans pay more instead of benefit from everyone else getting screwed price-wise.
 
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Scalping is a problem that is limiting attendance or causing hundreds, if not thousands, to just buy super cheap unsold tickets the night of the show. San Jose #2 clearly had a lot of people showing up late for the cheap seats that had obviously bought tickets for next to nothing.

There are always scalpers. But attendance numbers on the Innocence And Experience Tour dropped because many people were not interested in seeing the band this time around, not anything scalpers did.


So, in Denver for example, the band easily could have sold way more tickets had the prices not been inflated by scalping. Granted, the prices they were trying to charge for the lower levels were pretty insane to begin with and it took ages to sell a lot of them at many venues, but the nosebleeds were WAY overpriced when they first hit the secondary market. Virtually every single upper section ticket was snapped up by scalpers on the day of, turning these $30-plus fee tickets into $100-plus fees, so I could see a lot of people just balking at paying those prices and not coming back later when the prices dropped. There is no way U2 can't actually sell all the $30 tickets they want right away, but they just aren't getting in the hands of fans until hitting the resale market.

The prices were very reasonable for The Innocence And Experience Tour, especially after what the band charged for 360. There were lots of high priced tickets in the lower levels on 360, and lower level on 360 is much further away from the stage than it is in the arena. Plus, nosebleed in an arena is essentially the same as lower level in a football stadium in terms of distance from the stage. The average price of the Denver Innocence and Experience shows was $110 while on 360 it was $85. Yes it was little more expensive but that should be expected given that even the worst seat in an arena is more intimate and closer to the stage than most seats on a football stadium. They went from selling 78,000 tickets on 360 to just 28,000 on I&E tour for Denver. It was not the price of tickets, its just many fans were not interested this time around, like POPMART essentially.

Likewise, the lower seated tickets are way too overpriced for most people. $300-600 is friggin' ridiculous. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, making GA fans pay more is the obvious solution if they want the same profit margins. Those fans are getting a steal with $80 tickets or whatever and would gladly pay $200 for the experience since it's still a much better value in their minds then triple for a seat. U2 would be a bigger act demand-wise if they were willing to make their biggest fans pay more instead of benefit from everyone else getting screwed price-wise

If the band wants to encourage more younger people to come to the shows, keeping GA prices down is a must. There are a few stadiums where GA has not soldout for the Joshua Tree tour which is shocking. If you raise the price for GA, the number stadiums that fail to sellout the field will rise. At a bare minimum, you want the field to be full. I don't know why these GA tickets have not sold for this tour, but I guess many older fans no longer desire to be on the field for the show anymore. Given that, perhaps they should actually drop the price for GA tickets a bit.

Many of U2's biggest fans are paying top dollar to sit in the lower level and stay off the field. I'm sure a lot of younger fans are drawn to GA for the price and freedom of the field, and the opportunity to be close to the legendary band they may have never seen before. For the average U2 fan, it appears that GA is no longer desired the way it once was, at least not at the stadium level in the United States.

I hope they continue to keep the GA prices low as it makes it easier to attend multiple shows. If they were charging $250 or $275 for GA, I don't know if I would even bother doing GA. I'd probably just go for upper level seats in that case.
 
I hope they continue to keep the GA prices low as it makes it easier to attend multiple shows. If they were charging $250 or $275 for GA, I don't know if I would even bother doing GA. I'd probably just go for upper level seats in that case.

I note the Metallica show down here in Miami still has GA/field available -- the cost is $155. Plus around 7000 seats still available.

U2 sold out Miami with no problem.

So keeping the field tickets cheap works for U2. For Metallica charging over twice as much works better (on the whole their seats are cheaper than U2's).

Both bands know their fan base and what to charge -- and where.

As for Louisville and Pittsburgh, U2 just isn't happening in that area much anymore. Still, they'll have decent attendance.

Same for Houston and Tampa, both of which will probably not sell out completely (especially Houston), but won't be noticeably short of a sell out.
 
Well, concerning GA to be a boon for younger fans...uh, that's really only the case in these select markets where GA tickets (absurdly) are still unsold. And when we're getting into the arenas, it's basically a joke because it was basically just fan club members that were able to get GA tickets for I&E since there weren't that many. So, having the GA price lower doesn't really mean jack for the younger/casual audience when it almost always entails that you have a fan club membership nowadays in order to snag them.

Those on the floor are generally much older than those in the seats. Plenty of young people in their 20s and 30s in the nosebleeds...the floor is loaded with decades-long fans in their 40s and up.

I do agree that demand is clearly way down for them as a touring act. I&E not having any hits and being regarded as generally shitty by the public and critics certainly didn't help much either. The other big problem is that U2 isn't quite a boomer act like, say, The Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney. That audience wants to see maybe six acts life (often over-and-over) and is willing to spend an exorbitant amount to continue watching them. U2's appeal is a bit broader, certainly far younger, and they can't charge as much as those acts or the "I'm a trophy wife, so buy me tickets" acts (Beyonce, Madonna).

360 probably benefited quite a bit to them not quite playing to demand on the Vertigo Tour, specifically in the United States. So a lot of people that wanted to see them, but really couldn't wanted to catch U2 live and check it off their bucket list whereas Vertigo was the last time they were really relevant critically/commercially. Keep in mind that the Vertigo Tour would have near instant arena sell-outs almost everywhere whereas tickets for a lot of shows on I&E just sat their for ages (partially due to the price) while the cheap seats all sat on resale websites up until the night of.

It would be interesting to see where the demand would be with Vertigo-level prices (adjusted for inflation) in an arena setting and methods to keep scalper bots away...I actually think the demand is a lot higher than you'd expect, but on Vertigo they were charging like $150 total for the lower seats and now they're asking like $300-plus fees...those prices definitely shoo people away.
 
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Well, concerning GA to be a boon for younger fans...uh, that's really only the case in these select markets where GA tickets (absurdly) are still unsold. And when we're getting into the arenas, it's basically a joke because it was basically just fan club members that were able to get GA tickets for I&E since there weren't that many. So, having the GA price lower doesn't really mean jack for the younger/casual audience when it almost always entails that you have a fan club membership nowadays in order to snag them.

Those on the floor are generally much older than those in the seats. Plenty of young people in their 20s and 30s in the nosebleeds...the floor is loaded with decades-long fans in their 40s and up.

I do agree that demand is clearly way down for them as a touring act. I&E not having any hits and being regarded as generally shitty by the public and critics certainly didn't help much either. The other big problem is that U2 isn't quite a boomer act like, say, The Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney. That audience wants to see maybe six acts life (often over-and-over) and is willing to spend an exorbitant amount to continue watching them. U2's appeal is a bit broader, certainly far younger, and they can't charge as much as those acts or the "I'm a trophy wife, so buy me tickets" acts (Beyonce, Madonna).

360 probably benefited quite a bit to them not quite playing to demand on the Vertigo Tour, specifically in the United States. So a lot of people that wanted to see them, but really couldn't wanted to catch U2 live and check it off their bucket list whereas Vertigo was the last time they were really relevant critically/commercially. Keep in mind that the Vertigo Tour would have near instant arena sell-outs almost everywhere whereas tickets for a lot of shows on I&E just sat their for ages (partially due to the price) while the cheap seats all sat on resale websites up until the night of.

It would be interesting to see where the demand would be with Vertigo-level prices (adjusted for inflation) in an arena setting and methods to keep scalper bots away...I actually think the demand is a lot higher than you'd expect, but on Vertigo they were charging like $150 total for the lower seats and now they're asking like $300-plus fees...those prices definitely shoo people away.

But those nearly $300 dollar priced ticket sold just fine on 360. When you go indoors its a better deal on those seats because they are even closer to the stage. The one thing that told me it was not really about price on I&E tour was seeing sections full of $100 dollar tickets not purchased by fans or scalpers after the first day of onsale.

Oh, and average ticket price for Vertigo Denver adjusted for inflation to 2015 would be $117.54. Thats compared to the average ticket price of I&E Denver which was $110.69. Denver Vertigo was more expensive and soldout instantly as fast as tickets could be sold. Denver I&E struggled to get to 28,141 which was not a sellout for either night.
 
I note the Metallica show down here in Miami still has GA/field available -- the cost is $155. Plus around 7000 seats still available.

U2 sold out Miami with no problem.

So keeping the field tickets cheap works for U2. For Metallica charging over twice as much works better (on the whole their seats are cheaper than U2's).

Both bands know their fan base and what to charge -- and where.

As for Louisville and Pittsburgh, U2 just isn't happening in that area much anymore. Still, they'll have decent attendance.

Same for Houston and Tampa, both of which will probably not sell out completely (especially Houston), but won't be noticeably short of a sell out.

Well, in Metallica's defense, this tour is in support a new album, where as U2's tour is a nostalgia tour designed to be an easy sell.

I think this is also the best Metallica has actually done in Stadiums in North America in their career, especially since the support acts are rather weak compared to the Stadium tours they did back in 1992, 2000, and 2003. 1992 was with Guns N Roses, 2000 had Kid Rock, Korn and some others, and 2003 had Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and others. This is the first time Metallica's played stadiums in North America where the opening acts are not really there to sell tickets, at least not to the degree they were in the past.
 
In 1992 Metallica was the support act
Sure it was billed as a co headlining tour, but GnR was by far the bigger draw and played last
 
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Yeah, but over time the black album way, way outsold the top selling of the two Use Your Illusion LPs. Move things forward a year or two and Metallica is obviously a far bigger draw, regardless of Slash leaving GnR.

Metallica has what might be their most well received album since the aforementioned black album going for them (and I agree with that assessment), so I can really understand the demand to see this new record performed live.
 
Tampa and Houston will be mostly sold out. If you're at the show, you won't probably notice any empty sections. Fact is these 2 shows would be sold out already if they were on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

I think Louisville is going to surprise everybody. I notice on the ticketmaster map the floor is LIGHT blue, meaning it's almost sold out. My prediction is the floor will sell out, prices will be dropped on some of those $280 tickets that aren't selling. Tickets will be given away via radio contest, people who know people, etc. People in the nosebleeds will be transplanted to unsold seats in the lower level. It's probably going to appear full. Not including floor tickets, there are only 2,100 unsold seats for Louisville. They'll find a way to fill it out.

Pittsburgh is gonna be interesting. On the TM map the floor is MEDIUM BLUE, meaning there's still a fair amount of unsold floor tickets. There will still be 45,000+ at this show. Cleveland is only 2 hours away, and on a Saturday, so many people chose Cleveland. Also, U2 were never super popular in Pittsburgh anyway. Zoo TV they were under 40,000, and Popmart they were under 30,000. They had 55,000 there in 2011, but could've easily fit 5,000 or more in the upper levels.

Edit: Just looked. They've opened up many more seats in the upper level for sale in the $35 range for Pittsburgh. They are no longer selling floor tickets for Pittsburgh. Either it's sold out, or they just figured they have enough people down there and want to focus their efforts on filling the upper levels.
 
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They are no longer selling floor tickets for Pittsburgh. Either it's sold out, or they just figured they have enough people down there and want to focus their efforts on filling the upper levels.

I suspect this is more Ticketmaster manipulation. Check an hour later -- or less -- and the floor tickets will be available again.

I've had Ticketmaster flip the stage on me for both the Phoenix and Chicago show last tour -- they do things like this to manipulate sales I think -- "Don't like where your tickets are now that we've flipped the stage -- buy them on the other end of the floor and find some to buy the ones you already have!"
 
In 1992 Metallica was the support act
Sure it was billed as a co headlining tour, but GnR was by far the bigger draw and played last

No, GnR was not "by far the bigger draw". Case in point, Metallica had headlined their own tours before, GNR was on their first headlining tour supporting the Use Your Illusion Albums. GNR was booked in Arenas just like Metallica before the summer stadium tour. Album sales and singles and radio airplay, sure GNR was bigger in that sense, but when it came to selling concert tickets there were pretty much equal. Someone had to headline and GNR got it because of greater total album sales at the time plus airplay on the radio.

The show I saw at R.F.K. stadium, the first show on the co-headlining stadium tour, you could tell the crowd was about half and half, just from when people came and when they left. Metallica were the professionals going on at their appointed time and playing a great set. GNR, like a bunch of children waited until after mid-night to get on the stage, over 2 hours after Metallica had finished their set.
 
Also, U2 were never super popular in Pittsburgh anyway.

What would qualify an artist as being super popular in Pittsburgh? I think if an artist is able to play a stadium there, which is usually not the case, its probably one and done. I can't really think of any artist that have done multiple stadium shows in Pittsburgh on back to back nights. Maybe Bruce Springsteen on Born In The USA tour back in 1985. Well, now I'm curious to find out who has the record for concert attendance on a single tour in Pittsburgh.
 
No, GnR was not "by far the bigger draw". Case in point, Metallica had headlined their own tours before, GNR was on their first headlining tour supporting the Use Your Illusion Albums. GNR was booked in Arenas just like Metallica before the summer stadium tour. Album sales and singles and radio airplay, sure GNR was bigger in that sense, but when it came to selling concert tickets there were pretty much equal. Someone had to headline and GNR got it because of greater total album sales at the time plus airplay on the radio.

The show I saw at R.F.K. stadium, the first show on the co-headlining stadium tour, you could tell the crowd was about half and half, just from when people came and when they left. Metallica were the professionals going on at their appointed time and playing a great set. GNR, like a bunch of children waited until after mid-night to get on the stage, over 2 hours after Metallica had finished their set.

I saw the tour as well.
You're Stingingly clear bias shows through in your post.
GnR were definitely the bigger draw in 1992.
 
What would qualify an artist as being super popular in Pittsburgh? I think if an artist is able to play a stadium there, which is usually not the case, its probably one and done. I can't really think of any artist that have done multiple stadium shows in Pittsburgh on back to back nights. Maybe Bruce Springsteen on Born In The USA tour back in 1985. Well, now I'm curious to find out who has the record for concert attendance on a single tour in Pittsburgh.

Springsteen did 2 arena shows in Pittsburgh on Born in the USA tour. Then did one stadium show on a subsequent leg 11 months later.
Garth Brooks did 6 arena shows in Pittsburgh over 4 nights in Feb 2015.
 
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