We are just a little over a week away from the Idols Live Tour stop in Huntington. But already, the tour as a whole has been deemed a failure…
“USA Today” took a look at the first 30 of the 57 shows scheduled. Here’s what they found:
There were no sellouts during those 30 shows and only one of them topped 93% capacity (the show in Jordin’s hometown of Glendale, Arizona). Last year at this point, 17 were sellouts and another 10 topped 93%...
14 of the shows were below 60% capacity, with the lowest at 38.9% in Birmingham, Alabama (the home of Ruben Studdard, Taylor Hicks and Bo Bice). Last year, the lowest-capacity figure in the first 30 shows was 89.3%...
In 2005, 11 of the first 29 shows were sellouts and another four topped 93%...
And here’s another difference. In 2005, tickets averaged $44.47, 2006 tour prices averaged $53.27. This year’s tickets average $60.45, a 13% hike.
Gary Bongiovanni, editor of touring trade publication “Pollstar,” told “USA Today,” “Percentage-wise, that is a pretty healthy jump in the average ticket price. In the first six months of the year, the average price for the top 100 touring acts had only gone up 50 cents. Maybe the ticket price was creeping up a little too high for that audience.”
You think?
As I’ve said before, the folks at 19 got cocky and thought that because last year’s tour was such a success that this one would be too, so they raised prices. But they made a major miscalculation. This year’s group is not as good.
As former “Variety” music editor Don Waller told “USA,” “It was bad casting.”
Personally, I hope this year’s tour teaches 19 two important lessons: Get better contestants AND let us get to know them so we can vote for them…
