Worried About More Cancellations

[Anonymous]

Considering how poorly this tour is selling, I am worried Morrissey might bag a lot more shows. There are still great seats available for all nights in New York and Boston - you'd think they would be harder to come by at this stage. I have to think he is going to cancel the second show in the two-show cities. Anyone else feeling equally pessimistic?

 

[ww]

> Considering how poorly this tour is selling, I am worried Morrissey might
> bag a lot more shows. There are still great seats available for all nights
> in New York and Boston - you'd think they would be harder to come by at
> this stage. I have to think he is going to cancel the second show in the
> two-show cities. Anyone else feeling equally pessimistic?

no. . .have you been checking tickemaster every day? you see. they aren't selling best first. they've been releasing batches--each batch containging good seats, ok seats, not so good seats, MEZ seats. the place has sold tickets all over. the matter of fact, i think the MEZ sections are quite filled up, along with the ORCH section whcih I've seen them sell the last row too even. I think all the very good seats are gone though. . .the first 15 rows or so.

Look Morrissey is playing a venue that has 6000 seats. other bands with more publicity is playing shows with 1000-3000 capacity. so this show may not sell out. However, i was thinking about how ticketmaster is selling this show. They started selling by releasing horrible seats. even the presales had horrible seats. so many fans (and i mean many fans)have extra tickets. no way are we all going to sell them. 'Someone' knew that selling 6000 tickets, at a time in which touring is bad business in the states, would be a difficult task, so they tricked fans into buying more tickets than needed. I just wonder who decided that. Better not be the MOrrissey camp. Of course i could be wrong on this whole conspiracy thing.

 

[ww]

and someone on these boards told me they were selling the Boston shows the same way. not sure about the rest of the country. Perhaps yes perhaps no.

 

[Harsh Truth]

at these prices, even a 2/3 house will be very profitable. He'd be a fool to cancel shows at this point, as it would result in a slew of bad press within the industry. He already took a few (highly misguided)lumps for Lollapoloza.

The last thing the man needs during his big comeback year is another round of cancellations. Obviosuly, if it did come to that (which I highly doubt) Camp Moz wouldn't announce the reason as being poor sales, but as stupid as most music writers are, they would see through the BS right away and pronounce Moz Mania dead. Morrissey doesn't need that press.

All this said, I think you'll see future US tours routed differently. I can't see places like South Bend, Milwaukee, Nashville, and Louisville getting many shows going forward if these draw very poorly. I think he'll continue to play often in the Southwest where his fanbase is very strong and some of the larger cities (NY, Chicago, Boston, maybe Miami and some places in Texas) but not much else.

> Considering how poorly this tour is selling, I am worried Morrissey might
> bag a lot more shows. There are still great seats available for all nights
> in New York and Boston - you'd think they would be harder to come by at
> this stage. I have to think he is going to cancel the second show in the
> two-show cities. Anyone else feeling equally pessimistic?

 

[Jamie]

Re: Chicago is general admission

> and someone on these boards told me they were selling the Boston shows the
> same way. not sure about the rest of the country. Perhaps yes perhaps no.

And the Aragon probably holds 1,200-1,500 tops. As of yesterday afternoon (the last time I checked), tickets were still available. Furthermore, this was one of the shows that had a pre-sale; in fact, people were selling the PASSWORD to the pre-sale on eBay hours before it began!

I wouldn't go so far as to cry out conspiracy. I think maybe both Morrissey and his minders overestimated the longevity of YATQ AND the interest in his resurgence from casual fans and, perhaps, erred in booking larger venues.

Cheers,

Jamie

 

[lovingmouth3114]

I agree,
if you check ticketmaster website, you can look for best seats one day and it be in the balcony and the next be orch..
just depends..

 

[nowmyheartisok]

too little too late

i think he took too long to set up dates. too late to start sellings tickets. he should have better organized himself and the tour to sell tickets while he was red hot. in my personal opinion. "nobody likes to eat at an empty restaurant"

the cancelations wont help much either, specially while he is starting to "cool" off...

 

[ww]

I don't think moz mania is dead. it's just a bad touring season. some of the venues in the bigger cities should have been different--lower capacity. ticket prices lower (this is a biggie). and more publicity (also a biggie). How could Moz mania be dead if his last album just sold the most ever? Sure Moz mania is dying with the younger gen because they don't know him and it's been 7 years since the last album. but that's why the morrissey camp need to figure out how to get him out there to those people--the 17-24 yr olds. I think playing college towns would be good. you have a fan convincing a non-fan to go and they 'walk' to the show and a new fan is born. It's that simple. plus ticket sales can't be high. no one wants to pay a high price if they don't know much about the performer. But i understand ticket prices aren't that high with all the shows. Just the big cities pretty much.

for instance. Why play in detroit? he should have gone back to the hill auditorium in Ann Arbor(University of Michigan) or the State theater in Ann Arbor. More fans in that city and most don't have cars because they all in school. and the fans outside the city do have cars and they could drive in. that show, if it were in ann arbor would be sold out already. I'm sure there could be other examples found, like this one, through-out the country. I just know about Ann Arbor because i lived there--without a car and wouldn't have seen morrissey if he didn't come to ann arbor in 1997.

> at these prices, even a 2/3 house will be very profitable. He'd be a fool
> to cancel shows at this point, as it would result in a slew of bad press
> within the industry. He already took a few (highly misguided)lumps for
> Lollapoloza.

> The last thing the man needs during his big comeback year is another round
> of cancellations. Obviosuly, if it did come to that (which I highly doubt)
> Camp Moz wouldn't announce the reason as being poor sales, but as stupid
> as most music writers are, they would see through the BS right away and
> pronounce Moz Mania dead. Morrissey doesn't need that press.

> All this said, I think you'll see future US tours routed differently. I
> can't see places like South Bend, Milwaukee, Nashville, and Louisville
> getting many shows going forward if these draw very poorly. I think he'll
> continue to play often in the Southwest where his fanbase is very strong
> and some of the larger cities (NY, Chicago, Boston, maybe Miami and some
> places in Texas) but not much else.

 

[ww]

how did he do in 2000 and 2002?

> i think he took too long to set up dates. too late to start sellings
> tickets. he should have better organized himself and the tour to sell
> tickets while he was red hot. in my personal opinion. "nobody likes
> to eat at an empty restaurant"

> the cancelations wont help much either, specially while he is starting to
> "cool" off...
how did those tours do in the US? what size venues were they? I mean then he was totally off the rador for most people because there was no album in sight.

 

[Harsh Truth]

I personally don't think Moz Mania is done, I'm as big an over-compulsive fan as any!! I was just saying that the industry would come down on Morrissey IF he cancels a bunch of shows at this juncture. They typically look for any reason they can to have a go at him...

You make good points, though. Ticket prices are a bit high. A casual fan is not going to pay $61.50 (before fees!) for a ticket, I wouldn't think.

> I don't think moz mania is dead. it's just a bad touring season. some of
> the venues in the bigger cities should have been different--lower
> capacity. ticket prices lower (this is a biggie). and more publicity (also
> a biggie). How could Moz mania be dead if his last album just sold the
> most ever? Sure Moz mania is dying with the younger gen because they don't
> know him and it's been 7 years since the last album. but that's why the
> morrissey camp need to figure out how to get him out there to those
> people--the 17-24 yr olds. I think playing college towns would be good.
> you have a fan convincing a non-fan to go and they 'walk' to the show and
> a new fan is born. It's that simple. plus ticket sales can't be high. no
> one wants to pay a high price if they don't know much about the performer.
> But i understand ticket prices aren't that high with all the shows. Just
> the big cities pretty much.

> for instance. Why play in detroit? he should have gone back to the hill
> auditorium in Ann Arbor(University of Michigan) or the State theater in
> Ann Arbor. More fans in that city and most don't have cars because they
> all in school. and the fans outside the city do have cars and they could
> drive in. that show, if it were in ann arbor would be sold out already.
> I'm sure there could be other examples found, like this one, through-out
> the country. I just know about Ann Arbor because i lived there--without a
> car and wouldn't have seen morrissey if he didn't come to ann arbor in
> 1997.

 

[jack]

Hey. . .I tried to get people to vote for MTV2 Rock COuntdown and i had people telling me to give it a rest. "we wouldn;t want Morrissey on there anyway. I don't care about MTV" Well guess what. it's all about publicity. You could find people witht he potential of liking good music anywhere. . .including MTV2. actually there are some good bands on there. but then you have Papa Roach. yuk. LimpBizkit and Lincoln Park ruined the music scene with frat-boy agro-rock. And fred durst likes the Smiths? lol. he's trying to be cool or something. I wonder if at first he tried to sing like Morrissey but found out he's a horrible singer. Thus is why he screams and calls it music.

 

[jack]

you know. ten years ago every band, no matter who they were, was able to play at big venues and arenas. what changed? ticket prices. they used to always stay at $25 or so. take into consideration inflation; no show, no matter who it is, should the ticket price be over $35-40. But they do and concert goers don't see major acts anymore. they instead go to the smaller venues or to check out local bands at clubs/bars. Furthermore, album sales are down. not because of mp3's or what have you, but because of high album prices and the demise of the single. The music scene/business is dying because of greedy corporations and greedy musicians--many turning out shit (not morrissey of course).

the public doesn't have the money to support all this bullshit.

 

[B-Side]

I'm in Boston. I've talked to people who still had no idea he was coming. There's not much advertising. I don't know why they don't have a street team of some sort. When I leave a club and someone hands me a postcard or flyer I check it out. It's cheap and direct marketing.



Anyway, not much of a resale market for my extra tickets so I gave them away to either casual fans or friends who were too broke for tickets. Good karma maybe. Of course karma doesn't pay my credit card bill.



> Considering how poorly this tour is selling, I am worried Morrissey might
> bag a lot more shows. There are still great seats available for all nights
> in New York and Boston - you'd think they would be harder to come by at
> this stage. I have to think he is going to cancel the second show in the
> two-show cities. Anyone else feeling equally pessimistic?