Originally Posted by Butters

Very different situation over in this part of the world. The Stones always had/have a legendary cool factor. Bon Jovi don't have that. Bon Jovi have always been seen as a bit of a joke act by a large part of the population. They always overcame that by producing seriously good music and delivering epic live shows. Over the last 10 years you could see a very clear decline in their popularity - with the declining quality of their output it was harder and harder for people to combat the accusations that Bon Jovi are a crap, pop-rock, hair-metal band. Add to that the declining (and over-saturated) quality of their live shows (don't underestimate the impact of Richie's absence in this part of the world) and to me it is not surprising that a large proportion of their fan base have slowly and quietly dissipated.

It was notable on the last tour around Europe, in general, and in Ireland/UK, in particular, how slow their concert ticket sales were.

In the Irish context, in 2006 Bon Jovi sold out Croke Park with about 85,000 people. In 2008, they did Punchestown with about 60,000. In 2011, they did two nights in the RDS with a combined crowd of about 70,000. In 2013, they really, really struggled to sell tickets for their Slane Castle concert, and that is a musical institution in Ireland - that was a major flop for the band. It also didn't help that the reviews of the show were generally very negative (it was). I can't see the band filling any stadium here on their next tour - maybe one night at the RDS (30-35K) but that would be a serious fall from grace.