Dixie Chicks Tour Problems:
While sales of the Dixie Chicks new album remain strong, ticket sales for their concert tour have been quite disappointing, Bilboard reports.
Initial ticket sales for the Dixie Chicks' upcoming tour are far below expectations and several dates will likely be canceled or postoned.
Ticket counts for the 20-plus arena shows that went on sale last weekend were averaging 5,000-6,000 per show in major markets and less in secondaries, according to sources contacted by Billboard. Venue capacities on the tour generally top 15,000.
I suppose it is one thing to support the Dixie Chicks by buying their album, quite another to go to a show. The Chicks might miss their traditional fan base after all.
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"But the band have encountered no problems in Canada.
Tickets for a Toronto appearance sold out in just eight minutes, and a second date has been added."
Their comments probably helped them in Canada.
As I recall, Jerry Lewis was considered a comedy genius in France. Maybe we are just uncivilized...
More importantly, Federer has evened his semi-final match at 1/1 and controlling the third set 4/2. Federer/Nadal, Sunday, please.
I'd agree, though, that somebody like me is more likely to check out their album for political reasons, but still not so likely to go to a concert.
The new consumer base is liberals who are intrigued to hear the pugnacious lyrics and see if they like the sound. They buy the album.
The old consumer base is conservatives who are darned if they're going to support the Chicks. They stay away from the concerts.
If so -- speculation alert! -- then the Chicks will have achieved one round of good album sales at the expense of destroying their long-term brand value.
It takes self-discipline to stay with the program. It is a possibility that Maines, caught up in the cross-floodlights love, went too far in trying to ramp it up by, in effect, sucking up to the British audience. If true, they could either back down--which probably wouldn't work--or aggressively try to go the new direction.
On of the Chicks' early hits was "Travelin' Soldier", which included all the hot buttons. Before the football game "with Lord's Prayer said and the Anthem sang" and so forth. That market niche may not be narrow--country music is not only popular, it reinforces red-state values--but it sure is deep. Which is to say, it has some requirements. Loyalty is one of them. Country artists go to almost ridiculous lengths to demonstrate they are no different from or better than their audience. One observer said they are the nicest people to their fans of any genre of artist. The fans demand it. Bing Crosby was said to be able to walk through a crowd smiling cheerfully at everybody and making eye contact with none at all. Wouldn't work in country.
I would bet the concert sales indicate the record sales numbers were handled by a former Enron accountant.
MICHAEL B,
A man after my own heart. Watching the Federer/Nalbandian match right now myself. I like Fed but I have to admit part of me doesn't want him to win the French and thereby possibily, in the future, eclipse Pete Sampras in the record books.
Says the "Dog"
Good riddance to bad rubbish! Maybe they'll go to Anne Coulter appearances instead. There's a perfect match!
I don't think I was making a normative judgment. I was just explaining the likely cause of the decreased ticket sales.
That leap of logic mystifies me. I'm basically sympathetic to their political sentiments, and I thought that the swarming of them by the echo chamber was . . . well, let's say unfair. But it hasn't vaguely occurred to me to buy their album in protest, or to support them through hard times. Who the heck thinks that way? Or, more importantly, listens to music on that basis?
I'm sure that some anecdotal examples can be found. But is the contention seriously that such purchases are significantly driving record sales? Doesn't that strike anyone as a *little* implausible? I don't really have any more sophisticated argument here than "come on." But really -- come on.
It seems to me that the whole reason they made those statements in London was that they thought the London fanbase would listen to music on that basis. If so, expecting it to happen somewhere else too isn't a far stretch.
Fewer tours, fewer album sales. It remains to be seen whether that is true among the Chicks' new audience.
And why does it matter that they insulted the President on foreign soil? Why does that fact always get mentioned as if it is material. We live in a world where comments by famous people, no matter where they make them, get sent around the world almost instantaneously. Why should it matter if they were in London or Houston? If you believe, as the Dixie Chicks clearly do, that this war was incredibly misguided, don’t you have a moral obligation to speak out?
Moreover, they’ve sold about one-third of the tickets to their concerts in less than a week. Shall we wait a bit longer before we consider them dead?
Finally, Adler, why do you assume that the Dixie Chicks will "miss their traditional fan base" simply because they might make less money? Has it crossed your mind that some people do things out of principle? (See, e.g., Pearl Jam.)
If their comments were soley for principle and not for money then why are there stories in the press (like the one above) about their having to cancel shows due to poor sales? Wouldn't they just go ahead a do the shows, damn the torpedos? I think it is fair to say that they have alienated their traditional base and now it seems they are in a rebuilding process trying to win over a new base. As for radio play, just because you cut a record doesn't mean they have to play it on the air.
And whoever said because you cut a record, the radio has to play it? I certainly didn't imply that. My question was whether a radio could decide not to play an album solely because of a political veto? (This is of course different than a station deciding not to play an album because their fans are up in arms about it. But several radio stations have been very candid about their reasons for not play the Dixie Chicks: the radio station ownership -- or the DJ -- doesn't like that they insulted Bush.)
It's a "you don't criticize family to outsiders/suck up to strangers by criticising family" sort of thing. If you don't get that, you don't get a significant part of American culture. That part takes American identity seriously, even though a lot of Americans don't. That part makes up the bulk of the country music fan base.
That wasn't an early hit. It came out in 2003, so it's actually one of their latest hits. It was on the album that they were touring for when they did their London thing. That was their previous album.
They're not an old group - they've only been big since 98 or so.
You are correct I misread your comment on radio play- my bad. However, I think my other point stands, they cancelled several shows due to poor sales, what other reason could it be but monetary?
Copyright is also a government-supported monopoly, but it would not be constitutional to deny copyright to works which won't publish advertisements by the Dixie Chicks.
Ken, that isn't an analogous situation.
If one wanted to hear their music but not be subjected to the attitude, one would buy their CD and avoid their concert.
I guess I am not the measure of all things.
However, in my defense, I don't like to listen to country particularly, but I do like some of the videos. So if they weren't doing videos early on, I would have missed them.
This is a serious problem for them.Music acts make less and less these days off recordings.And it's as easy to speculate on people who aren't traditional listeners of country music buying the CD as an expression of support for them as it is to say regular Chicks' buyerrs are still buying but unwilling to risk the flak of attending concerts.(I have several friends who bought Sen Clinton's book for reasons of political "support",not literature.
I hate the hassles of paying ticket prices, ticket fees, parking, idiotic entry rules, searches that promote concession sales rather than security, overpriced everything, the inability to have acts perform on time (yes, I know how important it is for the different acts to each have a different stage set-up,) the "security" personnel, and the idiots who make them necessary.
Also, the radio station boycott wouldn't be so easy to enact if it wasn't for the right-wing ownership of Clear Channel Communications and its control over a huge swath of what were once a series of independent radio stations that played whatever country they damn well pleased. Say what you will about the Dixie Chicks, I hate the conformity of commercial radio much more than all the excesses of its artists (of all political stripes).