Unfairly maligned and arguably the band has overcorrected ever since. Yes, there were some rough shows at the start and a few technical hiccups, but the band and show itself got better over time.
The handful of shows you’re referring to was on the 3rd leg of the tour/2nd stretch across the US- 3 shows across 4 nights in St Louis (50% empty), Tampa (62% empty) and Jacksonville (70% empty). I agree that 3 ugly shows in somewhat minor markets overall wouldn’t prompt a recalibration and future retcon, but...
The overall US tour numbers were still a mess. Worse than you may remember! Based on the ticket sales info on the tour Wikipedia page, Popmart saw about 20% vacancy across the U.S. tour dates; that translates to 350,000 unsold tickets. 10 shows out of 37 had more than 35% unsold. I would love to have heard the conversations in the aftermath, because clearly they care about their popularity and scale.
The handful of shows you’re referring to was on the 3rd leg of the tour/2nd stretch across the US- 3 shows across 4 nights in St Louis (50% empty), Tampa (62% empty) and Jacksonville (70% empty). I agree that 3 ugly shows in somewhat minor markets overall wouldn’t prompt a recalibration and future retcon, but...
The overall US tour numbers were still a mess. Worse than you may remember! Based on the ticket sales info on the tour Wikipedia page, Popmart saw about 20% vacancy across the U.S. tour dates; that translates to 350,000 unsold tickets. 10 shows out of 37 had more than 35% unsold. I would love to have heard the conversations in the aftermath, because clearly they care about their popularity and scale.