Are the THINFS-tour ticket sales lame in general?
 

I went over to ticketmaster to check available tickets for ongoing THINFS dates and noticed there's lots of seats available on different shows. Should also mention that MSG shows werent anywhere near sold out which is kinda odd.

So are the ticket sales slower / is there less audience in general than before (like WAN-tour etc.)?

You're not searching right because both MSG shows are sold out. Tickets Master is now bringing you to a default screen when shows sell out... It's their version of Stub Hub... All shows are selling extremely well...

There might be those tickets available that are ridiculously priced but I don't count them...

I doubt all shows have sold out, but as far as the pictures and videos I've seen, they all look either near sold out or sold out. In other words the shows have been doing very very well....

I got two tickets for the Detroit show for $40 (not counting fees). Pretty good deal!

Last I checked Toronto night 2 there was a ton left.there was a time when 4 shows would sell in 5 minutes.

This will be your best source as the promoter releases the attendance. Right now only Nashville is showing up at #8 on the list but as Live Nation releases the info you should see it here.

http://www.billboard.com/biz/current-boxscore

It seems to me that there are a few, and I mean a few here that are hell bent on this band and tour to fail. From what I have been seeing these past weeks on pictures and videos, the shows look to be sold out, now maybe they don't sell out as fast as they did in past tours, especially in the 80s and 90s, but there are selling out, and for the most part people are enjoying the shows, but of course there are a few here are not satisfied until they can say, 'this tour was a failure", just saying, and for the record, I am only emphasizing a few.

Plenty of seats left for Pittsburgh and Memphis(in one week) shows at least.

If you're JBJ and you could still pull off an arena tour after losing a high profile figure like Richie Sambora, I'd be pretty impressed... Sure the numbers are going to dip a little. That has to be expected but overall,the numbers are still impressive...

If anything, the massive success of later legs of BWC tour + relative success of This House proved that the commercial importance of Richie to Bon Jovi brand is not so big. I would not have thought so in April of 2013. As much diehards love(d) Richie, he just doesn't have that "Slash effect" for the casuals.

I believe market oversaturation in the last 9 years is a much more contributing factor than Richie's absence. In many Western places they played like 4 or 5 times in a give city (not counting double nights, etc.) during this time span, which is more frequent than other high profile rock legends (e.g. U2, Bruce, etc.). It's natural that returns start to diminish a bit.

The arena looked full at my Vegas show and generally pretty full at other venues from what I've seen on video. I think Jon's assessment of his own performance is what has prevented the announcement of a 2nd North American leg.


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100 percent. They lost some people when Richie left, absolutely, but if the common man was that much of a fan of his he would have more of a following in his solo pursuits. We're so far past the point that a guy on the street knows the names of all the members of the band.

I just got 4th row center seats in Pittsburgh for $147.50 plus fees on TM.

Good for you! That show, for whatever the reason sold really slowly. Maybe it's the middle of the week date. But, there was a time where Pittsburgh got two shows.

When I lived in Chicago during the LH tour, I remember that there were two shows originally scheduled and they added a third. On the Circle tour, they did two shows at Soldier Field, the city's football stadium. I guess those days are gone...

Alot of casual fans won't see them every tour.
I had a columbian friend over for super yesterday and he said he saw them 5-6 years ago in Montreal. I assumed this was the circle GH tour. He said it was a once in a lifetime kind of thing. It was good, but he wouldn't see them again. (he also mentioned that growing up, he kind of had BJ forced on him by his girlfriends, so knowing some songs always helped him with the ladies).

My ex-rommate also went to see them on that tour in Montreal, even if he wasn't a fan. I think they played 5 or 6 times in 18 months there for this tour, so they probably had alot of casuals show up throughout these shows, as is probably the case for all their tours.

I think it's only normal that attendance is down a bit, considering who else is touring and how often they've toured recently.
Unless they are releasing material that helps them gain NEW fans, I don't see how they are going to turn the trend around, especially if you look at how these shows are going.

I'll still have fun at mine coming up, but I don't see the band impressing casuals to a point that they'll come back or convince others to join them next time.

That used to be the case though.

Though numbers are generally strong by industry standards, it probably is the worst selling tour since the first U.S. leg of Keep the Faith, on the heels of the band's worst selling album of its entire career:

http://www.billboard.com/biz/current-boxscore

Not a lot of sold out nights, though it's still great numbers. Most nights are within the range of 500-1000 tickets from a sell out.

Looks like all the shows didn't do too badly, bar Memphis

I noticed that as well and we all know the sold out is the promoter's percentage of available tickets to what they determined capacity would be (a sell out is never ever a butt in every available seat).

A positive article from Billboard:

http://www.billboard.com/articles/co...urs-31-million

It would be ridiculous to say the sales are lame or the tour is unsuccessful when they grossed more than twice the 2nd act on the list. At that rate, if they were touring at their normal pace and expanse of the world, they would likely be the top tour of the year again. But they are not going for that this time around. These numbers show they have nothing to prove to anyone anymore.

Not a bad tally from only 23 shows

Yes, that helps put the numbers in perspective when you see the tally and then how far behind #2 is!!

Totally agree. I don't get how there's people that still say that this band doesn't sell. The numbers are there. Period.

Amazing!!! The last 6 shows are missing too which would add at least another 7 million, maybe even more with bigger markets such as MSG and Philly....

Total 40 million once it's all factored in!!!!

#1 Album and top tour of this first quarter, Richie is NOT coming back... I'm sure Richie's payroll is millions higher than Phils too... This is a win/win for Jon!!!

they will always sell out, thats a fact, no matter Jon's voice, no matter Richie's not being there... they have a huge fanbase that really loves them

What? No they won't. That's not a fact, there are multiple shows on this tour that didn't sell out. That's not taking away how good I think the ticket sales were, I think they did great considering a lot of things but "they will always sell out that's a fact" is not right at all.

I think a more proper sentence would be "They will always sell out, if and when the market is right for a Bon Jovi tour and that's a fact". But that seems long :p

100 percent I do agree with that. They would have a sell out every time if they took more time off I truly believe. They're selling great right now considering how unpopular they are in the current music scene.

Bon Jovi / Jon is a legendary artist. I think with the absence of Richie and not having any real mainstream exposure lately, they lost a little popularity amongst their fan-base. I don't think he's quite up there with Paul, Bruce, Billy, Etc. and don't think he ever was but he's also one of the few 80's bands to go beyond any of his peers. With that he'll always have that niche market.

Like any other type of business sales, they have to sell towards whatever market they could maximize in. They should have no problem playing Arenas within heavily populated major cities. Now stadiums are a completely different type of monster. 20 thousand compared to 60 thousand is a huge difference. They'd be lucky to play 5 across the US right now.

Jon is becoming an old 55. I think he's burnt out both physically and mentally. He even wrote lyrics "My voice is shot, I'm going grey, these muscles all ache" Big long tours might be a thing of the past. Even if he has 10 years left in him, he's going to slow down. These arena shows were perfect for him.

Props to Jon for taking a solo band and mixing it with Bon Jovi so he could release an album and more so tour under that name. He put up some impressive number and exceeded everyone's expectations.

I wonder how much the high ticket prices affected sales? I think they have to.

I know tickets were discounted closer to the concerts but if someone doesn't have their heart 100% set on seeing BJ then they might not check back to see if they are discounted at some point.


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Here is an interesting comparison between the current attendance numbers and previous outings, providing an idea of growth/decline in a particular market. The difference may be owing to many factors, e.g. venue, stage/arena configuration, economy, market saturation, Richie's absence etc. Still, it indicates the health of business in markets they have toured this leg. Statistics (difference in ticket sales) are based on reported Billboard Boxscores.

Growth:

Greenville: 2,399
Atlanta: 2,002
Nashville: 4,365
St. Louis: 978
Dallas: 106
Las Vegas: 3,736 (different venue)
Sacramento: 1,313 (different venue)
Phoenix: 2,146 (different venue)
Columbus: 1,234
St. Paul: 200

Decline:

Sunrise: -1,053
Birmingham: -1,757
Oklahoma City: -1,298
San Jose: -2,011
San Diego: -1,450
Inglewood: -797 (different venue)
Memphis: -5,526
Cleveland: -5,969
Indianapolis: -1,623
Philadelphia: -121

The band played stadium shows in Chicago and Detroit during the BWC tour, and a festival date in New Orleans.

Your Cleveland "Decline" number is interesting.... There must have been a different "configuration" aka the back of the stage???? because they were only 1500 seats away from a sellout however the decline is 6000

The next leg of the tour will be the real test, I think, because there won't be any more "guessing" about what the show will be like. Let's see if the numbers can hold up.

The last time they played Cleveland at the same venue in 2013, the concert was reported a sell out with 19,050 paid fans in attendance. Quicken Loans Arena has a capacity of 20,562 (http://www.theqarena.com/arena-info/...rena-fun-facts).

Don't forget about cancelled stadium show in Cleveland on July 14, 2013. No official reasons, but most likely it happend due poor tix sales.

I did a quick calculation and the band pulled in an average of 1.35M per show, this tour... That doesn't include what they bring in with merchandising.

So with that, it takes 7 to 8 shows to cover the overhead costs based on that figure supplied in that article... Factor in another 3 shows to pay the band members and miscellaneous costs (could be a couple more)

I guess one could assume that every show after 10/11 is pure profit for JBJ...

1.35M times 19 shows is 25 Million... Seems a little high but without Richie's salary and elaborate productions, I'd say it's close...

For what it's worth I have a friend that works for the group that owns the arena in Toronto.

Ran into him at a raptors game last week. I asked what he thought of the shows... besides his comments which I won't bother to post, he specifically said the second show sold terribly with a ton of tickets given away or discounted at the band's request to fill the arena.
He said night 1 sold well but not typical bon jovi well.

He also added that the band has 2 tentative dates booked in the fall and will likely be back for another go... But has his doubts how well it will sell after the past 2.

It seems to me that there some here that are hell bent at not calling this tour a success. Analyzing numbers, finding ways to discredit the Billboard article, which is a legit music magazine. And, trying to find people who "claim" to kneow the band, saying that the shows didn't sell well. Ok, you can believe what you want to believe, but I believe in the real world, and its telling me that this was a successful tour, for at least this first part of the year. Now, there will be others tours from other artists that are coming up, especially this summer, and probably will do just as well, maybe a little better than Bon Jovi, but I am happy that for at least this first half of the year, THINFS tour was a success, whether you like it or not.