|
|
| corgi37 |
This on the front page of MSN - Australia.
There are big bucks in a Bigger Bang, but the latest tour by the Rolling Stones could have the promoter on the edge of his seat. Dino Scatena reports.
Make all the pensioner jokes you like, but statistics and cliches don’t lie. More than 40 years since first performing together, the Rolling Stones remain the greatest rock’n’roll circus on Earth. In fact, the band is bigger than ever. Their current Bigger Bang world tour is already the highest-grossing rock show of all time. More than 1.2 million fans attended the first run of 42 concerts across North America last year, buying $220m worth of tickets.
That figure tramples the previous world record for rock box-office receipts set in 1994-95 by – you guessed it – the Rolling Stones. That Voodoo Lounge tour grossed $164m. The previous record was held by the Stones’ 1989 Steel Wheels tour.
Tongue in chic
When tickets for the Australian dates went on sale a few weeks ago, Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena show sold out in minutes. For the Sydney Telstra Stadium show, 40,000 tickets – ranging in price from $55 to $400 – were sold by the end of the first day of trading. The remaining 10,000 tickets should all be gone by the time the circus hits town.
For the tens of thousands in the crowd, a stadium rock show can be the best of communal experiences; it can also be the worst, depending on your seat number. For a rock’n’roll promoter, there’s nothing more nerve-wracking than staging a rock event in a stadium built for sport. It costs millions to set up and so much can go wrong.
“Doing an indoor tour is a breeze – you can have one eye closed,” says Paul Dainty, the promoter behind the Rolling Stones’ Australian and New Zealand shows. “It’s probably 500% more work staging an outdoor tour, because you’ve got all those uncertainties that you have to deal with. Weather, for one. And traffic and large staffing numbers. It’s a massive logistical operation.”
Dainty first brought the Rolling Stones to Australia in 1973, and most recently in 2003. On the Bigger Bang tour, Jagger, Richards and co will perform in front of 70,000-odd local fans. Two shows in three days – Sydney on April 11 and Melbourne on April 13 – and then they’re off to New Zealand for another two outdoor shows, then it’s on to Europe for another 34 performances.
Despite the mammoth costs involved in staging such an event, there are, paradoxically, few safer bets in showbusiness than putting on a show by the Rolling Stones. “Their ticket-selling, box-office power is unprecedented,” says Dainty. “It’s phenomenal, staggering.”
Dainty won’t say exactly what it costs to stage a Rolling Stones’ stadium concert, other than it runs to millions. Partly because, in a way, it’s not his tour to talk about. With an act of this stature, Dainty’s company, Dainty Consolidated Entertainment, acts as the local agent for the band’s global tour promoter which, on this tour, is Canadian Michael Cohl. This year, the Stones will perform 67 concerts in cities across six continents.
“You’ve got enormous costs involved in getting the Rolling Stones to a market because they won’t compromise on their production, because that’s what they’re renowned for,” Dainty says. “They’re a travelling show; they come as a delivered package … Whatever market they arrive in, the local promoter, which we are, enacts their instructions. It’s a collaborative process, but we’re really representing Michael and the band’s interests in Australia and New Zealand, and acting, if you like, as their local producer and promoter. At all times, Michael Cohl is the boss. We’re like his local office.”
Music industry sources estimate that getting the Rolling Stones to Australia and New Zealand for four shows – three of them outdoors – would cost Dainty between $7m and $10m in upfront band performance fees alone. Once the shows are locked in, you need to spend at least a couple more million advertising the fact that the tour is taking place.
Add to this the cost of travel, hotel rooms and catering for the Stones’ 200-strong travelling entourage. Then you need to hire an additional 200-plus local workers in each city to help set up the 40 semi-trailers of stage gear which has been flown in from the other side of the world.
Finally, there’s the stadium hire. While there are no firm figures on exactly what it costs to rent, say, Telstra Stadium for a night, expect to pay between $250,000 and $500,000, or a flat 8% to 10% of door--takings. In return, the stadium provides much of the services needed, such as security, toilet facilities, food stalls and parking. On the night of the Stones’ show, more than 2500 stadium staff will be on duty, inside and out.
Calculated on average ticket prices, the Telstra Stadium show should add another $7m-plus in gross box-office receipts to the Stones’ kitty. That’s if all goes well, which doesn’t always happen. Recently Irish superstars U2 postponed two performances at the same stadium. U2’s Australian tour will now take place in November.
While the postponement of such a large tour might cause a concert promoter to lose sleep, the financial impact is usually minimal. The big agents insure themselves against these unforeseen outcomes. Cancellation, with all tickets needing to be refunded, would cause a lot more pain in incidental overheads.
Costings aside, Paul Dainty fears that one day soon the stadium rock show will be no more. Who is there to replace the likes of the Rolling Stones and U2 if and when these super-acts ever stop touring? In recent years, only a handful of contemporary music stars have dared attempt to fill a stadium on their own, including Robbie Williams, Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“With all due respect to those acts,” says Dainty, “they’re not in the same league as the Stones, U2, The Eagles or Neil Diamond.
“If we had a crystal ball and could gaze 30 years from now, which of the acts that are around today will be drawing mega-crowds? Maybe U2 is the last of the great bands that can do that, that have the staying power and the ability to do that. I’m not sure who comes after that on that level."
|
|
|
| Break The Spell |
quote:
corgi37 wrote:
Who is there to replace the likes of the Rolling Stones and U2 if and when these super-acts ever stop touring? In recent years, only a handful of contemporary music stars have dared attempt to fill a stadium on their own, including Robbie Williams, Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
With talk the other day of the top selling artists of 2005, sadly it may be the likes of Coldplay and James Blunt :{. Who knows though, I really don't see any of them around in 40 years, much less 20. |
|
|
| Jumping Jack |
Top selling artists are an old paradigm. It always has been and always will be about the coin, and our boys are the Kings of Coin. How humiliating is it to sell 8,000,000 copies of an album and not be able to convert it to cash? Money is the common denominator, the best performance indicator, and the true measure of success. Any good lawyer can confirm this.
WE ARE #1!!! |
|
|
| corgi37 |
James Blunt - the ex army cunt? Look, he's had 1 fucking album! Lets see how he does after the next. If there is a next. U2, sadly, can keep on going for 20 years easily. So long as the "silent 3" dont get sick of Bono, and Bono himself doesnt inflate like a balloon.
Coldplay are the Carpenters of the millennium. People will be bored with them 1 day.
I go way back folks. I recall Boston were gonna be the biggest thing in history. I remember Human League were gonna re-write the book. And, of course, GnR were the bees knees.
|
|
|
| Jumacfly |
quote:
corgi37 wrote:
James Blunt - the ex army cunt? Look, he's had 1 fucking album!
and a fuckin atrocious goat's voice!!! |
|
|
| TampabayStone |
quote:
corgi37 wrote:
James Blunt - the ex army cunt?
Cool name though. |
|
|
| Ihavelotsajam |
quote:
Jumacfly wrote:
and a fuckin atrocious goat's voice!!!
Oh god i was wondering what he reminded me of... thanks. |
|
|
| jb |
10k seats left..OMG!!!! Aussie is wide fucking open...this is really disappointing...(the 10k seats , off course will be "filled" but we are talking serious "papering" of the house by JC). |
|
|
| glencar |
It'll be another 22 years before they stop off there again! |
|
|
| Break The Spell |
quote:
glencar wrote:
It'll be another 22 years before they stop off there again!
Just in time for the 65th anniversary tour. Hopefully Streets Of Love won't be a warhorse by then. |
|
|
| voodoopug |
quote:
jb wrote:
10k seats left..OMG!!!! Aussie is wide fucking open...this is really disappointing...(the 10k seats , off course will be "filled" but we are talking serious "papering" of the house by JC).
This enrages me to no end! Next time, just give them one arena show or a PPV TV feed from a true sellout (See Mexico City or Fenway Park) |
|
|
| jb |
quote:
voodoopug wrote:
This enrages me to no end! Next time, just give them one arena show or a PPV TV feed from a true sellout (See Mexico City or Fenway Park)
Austtralia deserved only 1 stadium show with about 55k at 200-500 a tciket ....
[Edited by jb] |
|
|
| Spru |
Pearl Jam can and will elevate to selling out stadiums and touring the world. They already are on their way now, take their last 2 major tours (2000 and 2003) for example. They seem to get better with age, too, although I doubt they will ever charge extremely high prices, but who knows. |
|
|
| jb |
quote:
Spru wrote:
Pearl Jam can and will elevate to selling out stadiums and touring the world. They already are on their way now, take their last 2 major tours (2000 and 2003) for example. They seem to get better with age, too, although I doubt they will ever charge extremely high prices, but who knows.
Pearl Jam respects the Stones, thus, I have nothing bad to say about them...in fact, they helped the Stones sell out many a venue. |
|
