TOUR TALK

[Pamela]

Slow ticket sales for Illinois State Fair concerts

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. Ticket sales are slow for the Grandstand concerts at this year's Illinois State Fair in Springfield.

Fair officials are banking on last-minute promotions and walk-up crowds.

As of yesterday, just over ten-thousand tickets had been sold for the fair's six Grandstand concerts.

Pop singer Clay Aiken leads sales with more than 35-hundred tickets sold. He's followed by country performers Travis Tritt and Charlie Daniels at nearly 19-hundred tickets sold.

Other shows on the fair's lineup include the rock bands Styx and Kansas; country singer Clint Black; Hall and Oates and Michael McDonald; and country performer LeAnn Rimes with Phil Vassar.

The fair is scheduled for August 13th through 23rd.

WQAD.COM

[ACcountryFan]

in reference to the article about why Clay doesn't play larger venues, it's because Clay wants to play smaller venues, that's why. it looks good on paper that a show is a sell-out and Clay, knowing that ticket sales are down for everyone, isn't gonna play large venues that won't be sell-outs or near sell-outs. this is why he plays smaller places...

[Pamela]

Grandstand ticket sales started out slow in May and were down 25 percent from last year by mid-July, according to Christina Minier, marketing and public relations director for the Columbus-based fair. She used her usual strategy of giving away tickets during radio advertising spots to promote the shows, and just started using paid advertising a week ago.
"Clay Aiken is one of our best-selling shows, and he's not sold out," Minier said.
As of Friday, the 100th Kentucky State Fair boasted the only sold-out fair show in the area. Kenny Chesney sold out the first day tickets went on sale, according to Amanda Storment, media and publicity director for the fair. (Chesney also sold out the Illinois State Fair Grandstand when he played at the Springfield event last year.)

STATE JOURNAL REGISTER

[Pamela]

Tickets for fair acts not selling
Officials planning promotions, hoping for walk-up crowds

Want to attend a Grandstand concert at this year's Illinois State Fair? There are plenty of good seats remaining.

Grandstand sales for the fair, Aug. 13-23, have been a huge disappointment so far, but fair officials hope last-minute promotions and walk-up crowds will pull the shows out of the dumps.

As of Wednesday, just over 10,000 tickets had been sold for the fair's six Grandstand concerts.

Pop singer Clay Aiken leads sales with 3,586, followed by country performers Travis Tritt and Charlie Daniels at 1,890 and rock dinosaurs Styx and Kansas at 1,569. Country singer Clint Black with comedian Bill Engvall has sold 1,181, and retro-rockers Hall & Oates/Michael McDonald/Average White Band have sold 1,124. The last booking to be announced, country performers LeAnn Rimes with Phil Vassar, has sold 702 tickets.

STATE JOURNAL REGISTER

[Pamela]

Tour Info from Pollstar

7/16/04
Clay Aiken Greensboro Coliseum Complex Greensboro,NC
AEG Live Atlanta Worldwide Touring
C & C Concerts Cherie
6,934 sold
8,755 capacity
79%
35.00 - 45.00
$91,070

7/18/04
Clay Aiken Bi-Lo Center Greenville,SC
AEG Live Atlanta Worldwide Touring C & C Concerts Cherie
5,410 sold
8,128 capacity
66%
36.00 - 46.00
$36,348

8/11/04
Clay Aiken Ohio State Fair Columbus,OH
(In-House Promotion) Cherie
7,400 sold
8,312 capacity
89%
25.00
$185,000

7/19/04
Clay Aiken North Charleston Coliseum North Charleston, SC
AEG Live Atlanta Worldwide Touring C & C Concerts Cherie
3,981 sold
5,723 capacity
69%
36.00 - 46.00
$164,784

8/23/04
Clay Aiken Rockford MetroCentre Rockford,IL
Jam Productions Cherie
4,095 sold
6,613 capacity
61%
38.50
$157,676


7/21/04
Clay Aiken Roanoke Civic Center Roanoke,VA
AEG Live Atlanta Worldwide Touring C & C Concerts
3,595 sold
5,348 capacity
67%
36.00 - 46.00
$143,690

7/17/04
Clay Aiken Thompson-Boling Arena Knoxville,TN
AEG Live C & C Concerts
3,148 sold
8,751 capacity
35%
35.00 - 45.00
$114,318

Thanks to hockeydonna at the Clackhouse for compiling this info!

[Pamela]

Updated concert totals based on the latest pollstar numbers:

Venues Reporting: 13
Total Gross: $2,315,951
Total Attendance: 62,315
Total Capacity: 91,142
Average Gross: $178,150
Average Attendance: 4,793
Average Capacity: 7,011
% Capacity: 68.4%

Thanks to kmh135 at the Clackhouse for compiling this info!

[Pamela]

Tour gross summary

Number of Shows: 16
Total Gross: $2,933,012
Total Attendance: 76,589
Total Capacity: 111,646
% Capacity: 68.6%
Average Gross: $183,313.25
Average Attendance: 4787
Average Capacity: 6978

From BillboardBiz

[Pamela]

LAUGH CLAY LAUGH!

There's a smidge of Clay's interview yesterday with Kidd Kraddick up at
KIDD LIVE - so far, just Clay laughing.  

Hopefully, they will put more of the interview up later!

[Pamela]

Fans true to Aiken at Idol turned pop star's Nokia show

Clay Aiken fans, in a way, are a lot like Grateful Dead fans.

While they don't partake of mind-altering substances or practice free love, they do follow their leader across the country and back, some reportedly seeing their idol 70 times in the past year. That was evident at Mr. Aiken's concert Wednesday night at Nokia Theatre, where devotees - many of child-bearing-or-beyond years - filled the arena almost to capacity....

The ex-dweeb commanded the stage with confidence in his two-part set, which was a bit flashier than his appearance here last spring when he co-headlined with Kelly Clarkson. Opening with "Where the Streets Have No Name," he then peppered his act with lots of laid-back, personal chatter with the crowd....unscripted chattiness was a big part of the show. At one point, Mr. Aiken even showed home movies of himself and the crew screaming during a catapult ride at Six Flags Over Texas.

But there was also singing to be done. Mr. Aiken's booming, buttery voice was in fine form during his show, which included "Measure of a Man," "Kyrie," "Perfect Day" and "I Survived You," the latter of which he poured his heart into. Afterward, the crowd roared its support.

His onstage appeal went beyond the voice -- his talent alone is not what has these women racking up their frequent-flier miles. It's the voice, the sense of humor, the I'm-a-good-guy charitable soul and the cutie-pie face, topped with his secret weapon: the heavily lidded gaze. Mix it all together, and it can get the butterflies stirring.

And for his most devoted fans, the effect is as powerful the first time as it is the 70th.
DALLAS NEWS (registration required)

[CT loves Clay]

Yes, that's it!  "The heavily lidded gaze."  That is a perfect description.  

[gagran]

Tour gross summary

Number of Shows: 16
Total Gross: $2,933,012
Total Attendance: 76,589
Total Capacity: 111,646
% Capacity: 68.6%
Average Gross: $183,313.25
Average Attendance: 4787
Average Capacity: 6978

From BillboardBiz

Hi,

I hope someone can answer a question for me about these figures.
The number of shows(16) seems low even if they are "delayed" in reporting. Do these numbers include Clay's performances at Fairs??

Thank's
gagran

omg omg I did my first quote!!

[Pamela]

Sticker shock: It's not just for car lots anymore.
By Dan Nailen and Celia R. Baker
The Salt Lake Tribune  

One of the more annoying and confusing aspects of the entertainment industry in 2004 is the preponderance of "service fees," "convenience charges" and "handling costs" piled onto all manner of tickets, whether for concerts, operas or plays.
   It is maddening when a $10 ticket swells to $13 or $17 before you even put the ticket in your pocket. It can be infuriating when you pay anywhere from $30 to $100 face value for a ticket to a big-name music act only to have added fees raise the cost by nearly 50 percent.
   That's what happened to R.E.M. fans who went online to buy tickets for the band's upcoming show at West Valley City's E Center. The show was advertised as costing $35, but once an $11.25 "service charge" and $3 "order processing" fee are added, the total comes to $49.25 per ticket. That's about a 41 percent mark-up, and that's before you've even bought the $40 T-shirt, $3 soda or $6 beer.
   R.E.M. is an extreme example, but stiff service charges are more a rule than an exception. Virtually every ticket comes with an added cost, whether it's a $5 charge per ticket for the Broadway in Utah production of "The Producers" at the Capitol Theatre, a $4 charge on Utah Symphony tickets for its performances with Jubilant Sykes at Abravanel Hall or the $6.50 per ticket tacked on for Avril Lavigne's show at the Delta Center.
   The confusion comes when you realize that service charges and convenience fees vary depending on whether you buy your tickets in person at a venue box office or by phone or Internet, or whether you buy in advance or the day of the performance. Why can some venues like the Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley City run their own box office and not charge any service fees, while other venues have to sell tickets through a ticket broker and add often-exorbitant fees?
   And just where do those service charges go?
   
   A quick breakdown: Gary Bongiovanni is the editor-in-chief of Pollstar, a touring-industry trade magazine and Web site that tracks box-office numbers and touring productions across the country. Traditionally, Bongiovanni said, service charges covered the sale and distribution of tickets and the "convenience" of being able to buy tickets by phone or online instead of standing in line.
   Now, he said, "the distribution of tickets has gone from being a 'cost center' on the production of a show to a 'profit center,' " becoming "another income stream that is beyond the cost of doing distribution of the tickets. It actually is a way to make money."
   "There have been so many fees that have gotten added on in recent years, it becomes perplexing," Bongiovanni said. "And you don't really find out what all those fees add up to until you're at the point where you're pulling your credit card out."
   The fees help cover costs and fatten the profit margin of productions. There are three main groups that need to get paid for a performance - producers, venue operators and ticket-sellers.
   l Producing organizations create shows, pay performers and take care of operating expenses. They can be local groups, like Ballet West or Pioneer Theatre Company, or national companies that bring in such musicals as "The Producers." This group also includes Utah-based promoters, such as Darkhorse Entertainment or Postfontaine Productions, which book many club-level rock shows, and United Concerts, which books acts into venues like West Valley City's E Center and its own USANA Amphitheatre.
   l Venue operators provide performance space, such as the E Center, Delta Center or Capitol Theatre, and producers must pay them to cover costs of staging shows. These expenses ordinarily are covered by the ticket price, which is set by the producers. At times, though, associated costs like parking are kept out of the ticket price but added to the service charges.
   l Ticket-sellers are "middle-man" organizations that put tickets in the hands of consumers and cash into the pockets of producers so they can meet expenses, and, perhaps, turn a profit.
   DeeDee Hill, general manager for Smith's Tix, said the rise in ticket service charges correlates with the overall rise in ticket prices. While artists are asking for ever-higher guarantees for playing a concert, she said, they don't want every cost of putting on a show tacked onto the ticket price - that makes the band look bad. In order to pay for things like computer equipment and staff to sell tickets and tend the parking lot, promoters   have to charge higher service charges.
   "Everything is getting more expensive," Hill said. "The one reason R.E.M. looks so bad is, a lot of times you don't notice but [the ticket] will say, 'Parking included in ticket price.' For some reason, the $2 for parking and the $1 'consumer-user fee,' which helps retire the debt on the E Center, was included in the service charge [instead of the ticket price]."
   Whether or not costs like parking and staffing are included in the ticket or the service charge, Hill said, the customers are generally paying those costs one way or another.
   
   That's the ticket: Some local producers do their own ticket-selling through box offices at the venues where they operate. Pioneer Theatre Company, a not-for-profit professional theater, runs its own box office at Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre and covers ticketing costs from its general operating budget, said box-office manager Colleen Lindstrom. There is no per-ticket surcharge to buyers, only a $3 handling charge per order.
   "[The $3 charge] is small, but it does add up," Lindstrom said. "Those other organizations that charge more must be making a lot of money."
   Many local and touring theater groups contract with ticket-seller organizations - such as ArtTix, which is owned by Salt Lake County - while concert promoters sell tickets through big companies like Ticketmaster or Smith's Tix, or smaller ticketing operations like 24Tix.com and record stores like the Graywhale CD chain.
   Ticket-sellers must cover operating expenses such as rent and utilities, printing costs, phone banks, Web sites and employee wages. If the producing organization is local and has its own box office, such costs might be included in the company's operating budget, meaning there will be no charges beyond the ticket price.
   More often, such expenses are passed on to consumers as per-ticket service charges. These range from a reasonable couple of dollars to an exorbitant $15 or so per ticket. A per-order handling fee to cover the cost of mailing tickets or holding them is typically added, too.
   Hill noted that tickets for arts groups have traditionally had lower service charges, but that's because the arts are subsidized by taxpayers, while a rock concert put on by a privately owned promoter and sold through a for-profit business like Smith's Tix has to cover all its costs through ticket sales.
   "If you buy a ticket [at Smith's Tix], you only pay [service charges] if you go," Hill said. "With the arts, you pay for it every time you buy anything, through the ZAP tax. But we need the arts. It's never going to be self-funding, but we'd be a lesser society if we didn't have the opera."
   Steve Birt, one of the majority owners of Graywhale CDs, said his business started selling concert tickets to draw customers into the stores. For nearly three years, Graywhale stores served as Ticketmaster outlets, but the arrangement ended up costing money, Birt said. Now, Graywhale sells tickets for various local promoters and venues, while keeping service charges to a minimum.
   "The fact is, there are costs associated with tickets, because they are very, very time-consuming," Birt said. "It's tough to have no fee on there at all, because we have to staff for it. We keep our fees, we feel, as low as possible," Birt said, noting that his stores charge a $1.75 service charge for tickets bought with cash and $2.25 for those bought with credit cards. The fees basically pay for customer-service folks to deal with tickets and to advertise what shows are on sale at Graywhale stores.
   Many larger companies involved with the entertainment industry and ticketing don't want to talk about escalating service charges. Neither United Concerts nor Ticketmaster returned calls for this story.
   Pollstar's Bongiovanni has an explanation.
   "When you stop and think about it, the transactional cost for a $5 ticket or a $500 ticket is essentially the same with the exception of your credit-card percentage," Bongiovanni said. "If you pay by credit card, then there is a legitimate incremental cost there. You're paying a couple percent more the higher the ticket price.
   "So that's a legitimate reason why the costs will vary. But it doesn't explain all of them."
   
   Customer satisfaction: Melissa Rasmussen, president of Intermountain Ticketing Professionals,   said variances in ticket surcharges have to do with "how many fingers are in the pot." Surcharges will be less if a producer owns its own performance venue, box office and Web site operation. Touring groups don't, and often pass some of these expenses to the consumer in the form of ticket surcharges.
   "Somehow you have to pay the people who are helping with the processing," Rasmussen said. "When more people are involved in bringing in the show from somewhere else, there will be more service charges."
   Extra conveniences - 24-hour Web sites and credit-card orders over the phone - add costs that the ticket buyer usually pays in surcharges.
   "If a customer wants to buy tickets at 2 a.m., you have to pay the people making that possible," Rasmussen said. "It's about having convenience and accessibility so they can purchase tickets however they want."
   That hardly explains why some touring groups require a surcharge of $4 while others charge $15 per ticket. A manager at ArtTix said ArtTix incurs certain operating costs, including credit-card fees and set-up charges. Producers who don't want to pay those costs get the money from ticket-buyers by boosting surcharges. For Clay Aiken's Joyful Noise Tour, ArtTix's typical $4-per-ticket surcharge (for ordering through the Web site) will be $7, because Aiken's producers opted to pass some costs to consumers.   But some ticket brokers do manage to offer all the convenience of the larger companies, including middle-of-the-night ordering, with minimal service charges.
   24Tix.com launched in spring 2002 as a subdivision of Bottlerocket Manufacturing Inc., a software-development company. The company works primarily with local rock-show promoters at the club level, and has evolved from a will-call-only program to one where customers can buy tickets online and either print them out from a computer, leave them at will-call or have them mailed to a residence for a small fee.
   Shon Taylor, a 30-year-old Salt Lake City native who co-founded 24Tix.com, said outrageous service charges were part of the reason he and his partners started the company.
   "We go to shows, too, and it is silly sometimes how much you pay, and how you pay," Taylor said.
   At   24Tix.com, service charges generally range from $2 to $2.50, although for more expensive shows can carry a maximum service charge of $4. With the face value of the ticket going to the show's promoter, Taylor said, 24Tix.com is able to cover its business-related expenses - Web hosting, merchant fees and the like - and still earn a profit.
   
   How to save on tickets and surcharges
   
   * Live and in person: Call the box office or ticket outlet and ask the costs for tickets by phone, online or in person. Usually, your best option will be buying tickets in person, at the venue. You can do this in advance for some shows; for others, you have to wait until the night of the show.
   
   * Keeping it local: Patronize entertainment produced in Utah to save bucks. Local talent equals lower prices. There are no ticket surcharges at Pioneer Theatre Company, Salt Lake Acting Company or Hale Centre Theatre, Utah's largest amateur theater. Touring groups often have higher prices and large ticket surcharges.
   
   * Profit motives: Not-for-profit organizations such as Utah Symphony & Opera, Ballet West, other arts groups and universities usually have lower ticket prices and surcharges than for-profit presentations and touring shows. By law, they must pass these savings on to consumers. The quality? It varies widely, but can be excellent.
   
   * Join up: Becoming a season subscriber to a local arts organization can get you a price break on ticket prices and surcharges.

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

[Claytime]

I had no idea just how much goes into ticket sales!