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If you haven’t purchased your ten-dollar lawn tickets for the Family Values tour, featuring Korn and whoever is in Evanescence these days, you might want to grab some before the 20,000-seat amphitheater is a thing of the past. The giant outdoor pavilions on the outskirts of larger cities are becoming less and less useful to concert promoters, and they’re being replaced by venues less than half their size. With concert megapromoter Live Nation selling off venues near cities like Nashville, Indianapolis, and Columbus, will the boomer-oriented package tour (this year’s models include a package with Styx and Foreigner opening for Def Leppard) soon be a thing of the past?
With fewer and fewer big draws touring the country these days (especially considering that pavilion mainstay Ozzfest has shifted to a free-ticket model to stay afloat), promoters are looking to a more “long tail” view of finding shows to bring to town:
“We started thinking about this three years ago, when we were watching what appeared to be the trend of lots of niche categories – in cable TV stations, satellite radio, Internet and all these media options – that meet a specific consumer need,” [Cincinnati 4,100 seat venue] Riverbend director Mike Smith says.
“Now, connect that to large arenas and amphitheaters, and the careers of superstars, people who are capable of filling these places, like Dave Matthews and Jimmy Buffett and Kenny Chesney and a dozen or so others. There just aren’t as many of them anymore.”
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The new, smaller pavilion “sounds like a smart move,” says Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of the concert trade magazine Pollstar.
“The brutal truth is that most amphitheater shows don’t sell out.
“And the tickets that don’t sell are out on the lawn.”
The good news is that the consumer will have a comfortable place to sit, and better sound quality when they buy a ticket to see, say, Norah Jones. The bad news, not surprisingly, will be the ticket itself:
Smaller performing venues are more attractive to artists as well as presenters, says Bongiovanni, because all seats are reserved. In 1994, touring groups including the Rolling Stones shifted to “tiered pricing,” charging a premium for the best seats. But in the amphitheater world, the largest capacity is the lawn, which are the cheapest tickets.
“The artists will tend to demand that the presenters pay them a lot for that lawn capacity, whether they sell it or not,” Bongiovanni says. “But if you only have 6,000 reserved seats, it’s a safer bet. And artists generally like to play venues they can fill. No one likes to play to an empty or half-empty facility.”
Next summer, if this trend continues, the summer concertgoer is more likely to get a sunburn–and he might feel some added tenderness in the wallet area.
Huge Venues Are Vanishing [Cincinnati Enquirer]
This is not a huge shock, it’s really just a sign of the shift away from arena rock to the smaller venues. Big arena-rock acts cost tons of money to bring in — from guarantees to lighting grids to insurance — and it’s not worth the headache for lackluster ticket sales and promised buy-outs by big corporations that never seem to come thru.
If you haven’t purchased your ten-dollar lawn tickets for the Family Values tour
Beyond roffles. (Especially since these days the original core of that audience now HAS kids etc. and lawn seating is the easiest way to bring them along for picnic dinners while getting them to ignore the strange smoke smell in the air.)
Hell is a radio station-sponsored “festival” at a shed in the middle of August. Specifically at the Tweeter Center in Camden, NJ.
@Audif Jackson Winters III: WORD x 1000000. Oh man.
hey I think I recognize that place. Is it (formerly) lakewood ampitheater in atlanta? I saw tom petty drunk there.
you know, i happened to peruse Clear Channel’s 2006 annual report… here is their break out of the ampitheater segment of their business:
“ampitheaters are generally outdoor venues with between 5 and 30 k seats that are used primarily in the summer season. We believe they are popular because they are designed specifically for concert events, with preimum seat packages and better lines of sight and acoustics. At 12/31/07 we owned 11, leased 28 operated 5 had booking rights for seven and an equity interest in two ampitheatres located in North America.”
Live Nation Annual Report- keep one handy!!!
@Audif Jackson Winters III: Or the Hyundai Pavilion in California, located a mere twelve feet from the sun.
@JobCain & enriquez the water bottle: It’s the Cricket Wireless Pavilion outside of Phoenix, but they certainly all look the same. When I saw a show at what was called the Glen Helen Pavilion outside of San Bernardino, there was a deep sense that I had been there already.
Such good news. I’ve been to both Cricket in PHX and it’s big brother that DanGibson mentioned out in San Bernadino, and I can’t stand either one. Good riddance.
Oh yea, if that one in Cali is 12 feet from the sun, then Cricket here in PHX is about 3 1/2 feet away. Dehydration FTL!!!!
So there’s no WOMAD tour coming around this year?
Missed headline opportunity:
“The Dissing of Summer Lawns”
-JM
Como nuevos, siempre estoy buscando en línea para los artículos que pueden ayudar a mí. Gracias