Hey Jay, Bey & Riri: The country guy’s got the top ticket
figure of $190.
While rumors of slow sales have dogged the Jay/Bey tour for months, they don’t seem to be panning out. Some observers speculated that the pair had worn out their welcome, since Jay has toured the last three warm seasons, while his bootylicious wife played the e U.S. just last summer with her “Mrs. Carter” ” blowout.
But they didn’t consider that Beyoncé hasn’t previously built a show around material from her latest, self-titled solo album, released last December. And she has never done a full tour with her husband.
A source at StubHub b estimates the couple’s co-headlining “On the Run” tour could end up as the hottest ticket of the year, if you take into account the dates that extend beyond Labor Day. The source estimates the resale tally from the tour’s 21 shows will nearly double that of the second biggest roadshow of the full calendar year — from Paul McCartney, which kicks off July 5 in Albany. Billboard reports that the husband-wife tour has already racked up $86 million in ticket sales and can expect to gross close to $100 million before it’s through.
If we downscale from 50,000-seat stadiums to 20,000-capacity arenas, a different set of stars runs the show. In the arena realm, prices tend to be higher because fewer seats are available. The greater intimacy of these shows in
creases their value as well.
Piano man Billy Joel dominates arenas with his one-amonth-for-eternity dates at Madison Square Garden. According to a source at VividSeats.com, Joel’s priciest gig so far is his upcoming July 2 show, with a median resale figure of $525. By SeatGeek’s tally, that’s the most expensive markup median at the Garden since the Concert for Sandy Relief back in December 2012. There, seats went for nearly double Joel’s top show, with an average $1,026 per ticket.
Of the top 10 Garden events for this year, half are Joel shows, with a “low” median price of $370 for his November date. It’s an incredible success record, considering his shows happen every month.
According to figures from SeatGeek, Joel’s resale pull cor
responds to season. The colder the month, the lower the sales. December’s installment last year let seats go for a rockbottom $106.
Other Garden shows selling strong include Andrea Bocelli’s date coming in December, with a median price of $439, Bruno Mars on July 14 ($379), the Eagles in September ($347) and Fleetwood Mac’s first area date for their reunion roadshow with Christine McVie (who hasn’t toured with the band in 17 years) in October, at $337.
On the other hand, cheap local resale tix in our area, according to StubHub, include the Vans Warped tour in the Meadowlands on July 6 ($65), Phish at Randalls Island on July 13 ($61) and Wiz Khalifa at PNC Bank Arts Center on Aug. 3 ($59).
The top bomb of the season is the “Jesus Christ Superstar” tour, with JC Chasez, formerly
of ’N Sync, Michelle Williams, formerly of Destiny’s Child, Brandon Boyd of Incubus, and Johnny Rotten. Interest for tickets to that ambitious, 54-city tour ran so low, its own promoter called them “horrific.” The tour was canceled at the end of May before it even began.
Other than some weak pockets here and there, observers say the concert business has been booming. “We’ve worked through the great flop of 2009-10,” says Waddell. “Back then, pricing got out of hand, people were touring out of cycle or they’d played too often.”
Now, Now he h says, “the “h focus has been on pricing and value, packaging shows carefully, and being careful about where to play and when. It’s drone strikes as opposed to carpet bombing. And that has improved things for everybody.”