This is an edition of the newsletter Pulling Weeds With Chris Black, in which the columnist weighs in on hot topics in culture. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.
Last week, the Black Keys, a band best known for soundtracking car commercials and occasionally fistfighting fellow Nashville resident Jack White, canceled the entire North American leg of a scheduled arena tour without explanation. Why would a band without a major hit in years think it can sell out arenas in tertiary markets? No one can be sure, but the touring business is in trouble, and part of the reason is ego.
Going on tour used to be a non-negotiable part of a life in music—a way to interact with fans, make money, and see the world. But nowadays, artists either want to play arenas or stadiums or do a residency, playing multiple nights in one city at the same venue, à la Harry Styles and Adele. Every week, another artist goes viral on Twitter for low ticket sales, with a screengrab of a Ticketmaster seat map awash in blue. I will be at the Charli XCX and Troye Sivan show in New York City at Madison Square Garden, but can that duo sell as many tickets in Tacoma on a weeknight? Kim Petras, an artist with hits, had such an awful time with arenas that she resorted to Groupon. And legacy artists aren’t necessarily faring better; for every Justin Timberlake, who just added nine dates to his Forget Tomorrow world tour, there’s a Jennifer Lopez, who recently cut her upcoming summer greatest-hits tour short by seven dates, reportedly due to soft ticket sales.
The Taylor Swifts of the world are still making money on the road, and artists from Wednesday and Waxahatchee to Chappel Roan and Joanna Newsom are selling out shows at great venues. But big arena tours have historically been sustained by early ticket sales, and that part of the market appears to be collapsing. The Twitter account @UnderFaceValue tracks price drops and undersold shows and “other peculiarities across the ticketing ecosystem”; its mantra, because soft sales translate into crazy 11th-hour price breaks, is #PaysToWait. If you’d waited for the right moment, you could have seen the Rolling Stones in Seattle for $29, 21 Savage in Chicago for $19, or George Strait and Chris Stapleton in Indianapolis for $13.
These challenges hit close to home for me. My cohost Jason Stewart and I take our podcast, How Long Gone, on the road. We experienced a high point in Philadelphia at Johnny Brenda’s, a cozy spot in Fishtown with a rich history. The show was a sellout, the crowd was fantastic. The next time we visited, we stepped up to a bigger venue, World Cafe Live. The turnout was decent, but it didn’t reach the same level of energy, and the experience felt different. We’re heading back to Philadelphia in June, and we’ve decided to return to Johnny Brenda’s. It’s a lesson learned: Better to have a packed house in an intimate setting than a half-empty room in a larger venue. The ego bruise was temporary, but the lesson was invaluable.
Read the full article here
.jpg)
.png)
