Poor UK Ticket Sales and Future Musical Direction

[010101]

Nah, but I don't think much will change. But if it does, I hope it's for the better ofc (like playing smaller venues)

[LeicesterBLISS]

For muse in particular I think the timing of the tickets going on sale (just before Xmas) didnt help and the timing of the gigs themselves (exam time)

 

Should've went on sale at late jan/early feb to start in the uk in late July early August.

 

Wembley should've been the opening nights of the tour THEN it would have sold out both nights purely for the "wembley factor" imo

[Strangeseas]

The 2nd Law was also just not as popular as the Resistance among the general public, singles from the resistance charted way higher than 2nd law singles so far.

 

Madness was pretty popular

[Pjt890]

Uprising charted at 9 though, and i guess in general the 2nd Law just wasn't as well recieved as the Resistance.

[redneonfish]

Shouldn't forget that it's Muse's biggest stadium tour, so it's not as though lots of people are fighting to go to two locations this time + generic financial timing comment.

[mskatie]

A lot of people don't pay for music anymore. Perhaps not wanting to pay to go see a concert that will inevitably have videos of it up on YouTube is an extension of this mentality.

[dip]

Music piracy has been a problem for years now. It was a problem when Muse sold out two nights at Wembley the first time. It was a problem when Muse sold out two nights at Wembley the second time. It's still exactly the same today, so that isn't a contributing factor.

 

It's a combination of a hit & miss album and the fact they've been around each for over ten years now. People need a break.

[kueller]

What would the cause for the rather low US sale results be? Madness did pretty great around here and they most surely have not been around in mainstream for 10 years.

[JaHawk2009]

A lot of people don't pay for music anymore. Perhaps not wanting to pay to go see a concert that will inevitably have videos of it up on YouTube is an extension of this mentality.

 

I doubt it. Pirating music still means getting the same experience as others who purchase it. Watching videos of a gig online is nothing like attending the gig itself.

[chudenk]

Shit

 

+1

[Pjt890]

Also just because they didn't sell out doesn't necessarily mean they sold badly.

[gKimber]

They sold out one of the Wembley nights this time around

 

 

I guess music piracy is probably somewhat responsible for bumping it the costs of tickets every year as well - in order to negate the money lost in album/singles sales.

[Ryoma-kun]

They sold out one of the Wembley nights this time around

 

 

I guess music piracy is probably somewhat responsible for bumping it the costs of tickets every year as well - in order to negate the money lost in album/singles sales.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index

[mskatie]

I doubt it. Pirating music still means getting the same experience as others who purchase it. Watching videos of a gig online is nothing like attending the gig itself.

 

Some people consider online videos to be an adequate replacement for actually going...despite how illogical that is. And the amount of people with smart phones has increased a lot in the last few years, meaning there are more likely to be good quality videos that pop up.

[Wraffah]

A lot of people seem to be forgetting they were in the arenas just seven months ago as well - which sold at least 100,000 individual extra tickets, to people who probably thought "oh, I'll not need to see them again at the cost of another fifty quid now."

[jackparker]

Some people consider online videos to be an adequate replacement for actually going...despite how illogical that is. And the amount of people with smart phones has increased a lot in the last few years, meaning there are more likely to be good quality videos that pop up.

 

My friend's in a Punk Band and he never goes to concerts because he doesn't think it's worth it when you can watch the videos on YouTube And he's in a band!

[Frakkles]

Mid November to Mid September is a much bigger turn around than Late October to Late May.

[JaHawk2009]

Some people consider online videos to be an adequate replacement for actually going...despite how illogical that is. And the amount of people with smart phones has increased a lot in the last few years, meaning there are more likely to be good quality videos that pop up.

 

That makes ZERO sense to me.. Nothing beats the atmosphere of a gig!!

[mjartrod]

Also just because they didn't sell out doesn't necessarily mean they sold badly.

This.

[Frakkles]

Bad is subjective.

 

For a band that are used to selling out shows in certain locations to not sell out, no matter how many tickets you do sell, seems bad to me.

[cdparky]

U2 played 2 nights at Wembley in 2009 and sold them both out with ease, I think they might have set an attendance record (at least for a time) for the first night.

 

The 2nd Wembley didn't "properly" sell out (I say "properly" in case anyone goes on about technical sell-out what the promoter wanted to sell blah blah blah) - there were some rows of seats covered over near the top of the upper tier which were sold on the first night (which was rammed). They did set an attendance record the first night, from memory it was something like 88k first night 75k second. Still massive numbers.

 

As for slow sales, maybe the promoters are finally being bitten for the endless price rises and (though I like it) it's fair to say The 2nd Law hasn't really connected with the masses. It seemed at the Emirates that bar Supremacy people in general weren't that responsive to it.

[FJK_12]

I honestly think the lower than expected sales come from the general reception to The 2nd Law. The singles didn't chart particularly well, and of course there will be us diehards who will go along to most gigs but a lot of the audience will be made up by casual listeners who will go based off music they've heard form the band such as the singles. I don't think many casual listeners will have heard much of The 2nd Law.

 

Take Coldplay for example - they sold out at the emirates last year, I think a lot of that was down to extremely popular singles which were at the forefront of the casual listeners' mind.

 

Coldplay is a bit different too in that it is not a full on rock group such as Muse, and has a lot more mainstream listeners and have more of an audience to come and watch their shows - as someone said before many Rock bands aren't selling out these day

 

Sory for the rant

 

Edit: Just seen the post above explains what I'm saying basically

Edited May 30, 2013 by FJK_12

[sade]

It's a combination of a hit & miss album and the fact they've been around each for over ten years now. People need a break.

 

A lot of people seem to be forgetting they were in the arenas just seven months ago as well - which sold at least 100,000 individual extra tickets, to people who probably thought "oh, I'll not need to see them again at the cost of another fifty quid now."

 

I definitely think this is a big part of the ticket sales issue. Although it seems like there's a lot of time between each studio album, Muse kind of tour twice with the same album.

I mean, the European tours in recent years were

summer/fall 2007

(summer 2007 in UK)

fall 2009

summer 2010

fall 2012

summer 2013

 

Especially in smaller (European) countries where we aren't that used to big international acts stopping by so often, it becomes a bit of an overkill for the average fan, especially considering the growth in Muse's popularity has stumped a little with TR and T2L. From Showbiz to BHAR it was huge gains in popularity with each album, TR sold well but disappointed many and T2L is considered so-so, combined with the issues of alienating the old core audience but not gaining enough of a new fan base. It's not the new people coming to the shows so much as the same people coming over and over, if they haven't decided that they can easily skip the next one because they just saw them and/or didn't feel the new material. Plus the recession, obviously.

 

EDIT: Additionally, Muse haven't still made it to the rock dinosaur category(Rolling Stones, U2, Springsteen, Bon Jovi,Madonna for example) where they can just show up with whatever disappointing new album, people will come just to hear the hits. This is partially because those bands gained their popularity in the previous decades and the core fanbase is affluent (enough) middle-aged people and corporate guests who don't have to worry about spending that much money for the concert.

Edited May 30, 2013 by sade

[Moonlight__]

I definitely think this is a big part of the ticket sales issue. Although it seems like there's a lot of time between each studio album, Muse kind of tour twice with the same album.

I mean, the European tours in recent years were

summer/fall 2007

(summer 2007 in UK)

fall 2009

summer 2010

fall 2012

summer 2013

 

Especially in smaller (European) countries where we aren't that used to big international acts stopping by so often, it becomes a bit of an overkill for the average fan, especially considering the growth in Muse's popularity has stumped a little with TR and T2L. From Showbiz to BHAR it was huge gains in popularity with each album, TR sold well but disappointed many and T2L is considered so-so, combined with the issues of alienating the old core audience but not gaining enough of a new fan base. It's not the new people coming to the shows so much as the same people coming over and over, if they haven't decided that they can easily skip the next one because they just saw them and/or didn't feel the new material. Plus the recession, obviously.

 

EDIT: Additionally, Muse haven't still made it to the rock dinosaur category(Rolling Stones, U2, Springsteen, Bon Jovi,Madonna for example) where they can just show up with whatever disappointing new album, people will come just to hear the hits. This is partially because those bands gained their popularity in the previous decades and the core fanbase is affluent (enough) middle-aged people and corporate guests who don't have to worry about spending that much money for the concert.

 

I agree with you.

 

also a lot of artists have that they gained popularity and then kinda reached their peak and then after that they mostly don't really gain much popularity anymore, this counts for a lot of artists you named above. (some times they do gain some kind of popularity again, especially on their concerts/tours) but yeah the reason for that is mostly because the band or artist is considered to be a legend and has tons of hits. so people will just come for that. no matter if the new albums are disappointing and not a huge success.

[kueller]

It's sad that the biggest fear I have at the thought of Muse taking hiatus is what this board will turn into.