I've written reams about the increasing (and sometimes prohibitive) cost of touring and the myriad reasons behind it, but it should also be acknowledged that some of the biggest names in mainstream music are booking tours and then scrapping either individual dates or the whole run due to low ticket sales.
Evidence of a slump in interest in live music? Are apathetic punters to blame? Not so, according to Olivia Perreault of TicketNews: "Fans are not rejecting concerts. They are rejecting bad value."
The problem is essentially twofold: musicians (or their management) are fixing initial ticket prices far too high, and musicians (or their management) are grossly overestimating demand by booking enormodomes simply for the kudos and prestige.
What is urgently needed, Perreault argues, is a hefty dose of realism: "Artists and their teams need to stop pretending every fan base can support premium-everything pricing. Promoters need to stop booking rooms for headlines instead of reality. Ticketing platforms need to stop letting scarcity theater do the work that actual demand cannot. And managers need to understand that canceling a tour after fans have already made plans is not a harmless reset button."
That last point is particularly important. For an artist, deciding to pull the plug on a gig or a tour can be a way of saving some face and avoiding losing money. But in all likelihood the decision leaves fans who have already booked transportation and hotels out of pocket. If cancellations become increasingly common, then wary punters are likely to delay ticket purchases just in case, harming advance sales figures (which itself potentially impacts viability). Or, worse still, they may give up entirely on live music as too risky a gamble.
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