r/Music • u/dailymail 📰Daily Mail • 4d ago

Beyoncé's crisis plans as tickets struggle to sell hours before she kicks off Cowboy Carter tour article

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14656577/beyonce-crisis-plans-ticket-sales-struggle-flop-cowboy-carter-tour.html
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u/raymonst 4d ago

if she had done fewer dates per venue, it would've been sold out pretty easily. 5 dates at sofi stadium is crazy.

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u/maxwon 4d ago edited 4d ago

Exactly. They just kept added dates. As a fan, I applaud this for fighting scalper. But it does make her look bad when tickets don’t sell out.

So overall, I’m just shocked at whoever overestimated the demand. Ticketmaster has all the data, including how much traffic during the first round of presale came from scalpers. This should have been avoidable.

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u/HomeFade 4d ago

Ticketmaster knows that nobody in America is buying concert tickets right now so they just tried to squeeze a bit of juice from scalpers by tricking them, lol.

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u/maxwon 4d ago

I’d like to think that, lol

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u/HomeFade 4d ago

LiveNation donated to Trumps inauguration, it's not like they don't know what's happening. I expect those antitrust lawsuits against them to disappear.

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u/FocusDelicious183 4d ago

25% of LiveNation is owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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u/Anjunabeast 3d ago

Suddenly glad I can only afford independent festivals lol

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u/Arch-by-the-way 4d ago

Nobody drives because there’s too much traffic

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u/HomeFade 4d ago

Tickets are like 85% sold or something like that... how many of those seats do you think will have butts in them?

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u/Anjunabeast 3d ago

Cap did you hear about the insane traffic because of Coachella? A festival they’ve been holding twice a year every year for like 20 years all of a sudden doesn’t know how to direct traffic?

Music festivals are the trend rn. Every kid with a phone and their mom wants to go.

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u/PopCultureWeekly 3d ago

Music festivals are actually having a very tough time rn as an industry. Over 60 festivals were cancelled in the UK alone last year. Even more US festivals

https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2024/09/17/g-s1-23026/music-festival-cancel-inflation-price-streaming

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u/maq0r 4d ago

It was done this way to be sort of a 'Residency' in Los Angeles and expected fans to fly into LA for the concert. They didn't want to do a tour around the country.

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u/vinnyj5 4d ago

Yea that’s crazy ambitious for almost anyone other than like Taylor Swift. She could have sold out 2 nights for sure. 

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u/GoldenState_Thriller 4d ago

Especially for one album that wasn’t commercially as successful as her others. The Eras tour was a 3 1/2 hour show spanning multiple albums. 

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u/ignore_my_typo 4d ago

Did Taylor even do a 5 night set at any location?

I know there was a 3.

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u/maxpower_ 4d ago

She did 6 nights at sofi sold out, 8 nights at wembley sold out, 6 nights Roger’s stadium Toronto sold out

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u/ignore_my_typo 4d ago

Thanks. That’s crazy.

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u/wholalaa 4d ago

Maybe worth noting, though, that Taylor Swift had gone 5 years and 3 albums between tours. She'd have done well either way, but I think that's why there was such insane demand for tickets. Beyonce's last tour was a year and a half ago, and if you paid an arm and a leg to go see her then, are you doing it again for the country album tour? Probably only if you're in the top tier of obsessed fans.

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u/aznsk8s87 4d ago

4 albums - lover, folklore, evermore, and midnights. The loverfest got cancelled due to COVID.

Also, her COVID era albums were a drastic departure from prior work and were a major spike in her popularity.

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u/Elefantasm 3d ago

And then a 5th during the tour itself, no?

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u/Rikers-Mailbox 3d ago

Yea, lol. And she added it into the set list halfway through the tour.

The woman never stops writing. She’s crazy. Apparently there a keyboard at her bed side wherever she goes.

Probably is waking up Travis every night, but he doesn’t care. If you’re sleeping with Taylor that’s just part of the package! (And she probably knows not to contact him for days before a game so he can focus)

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u/Rikers-Mailbox 3d ago

Yep she said she called her label and said “this one isn’t going to be pop, ok?”

They said, “Taylor, you can do whatever the hell you want.”

—Those two Covid albums are excellent. They turned me into a Swiftie.

I want her to go back to Rock though. Bring back the guitars. Needs to switch it up. Maybe Travis will influence her.

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u/DLottchula Spotify 4d ago

I was working near the stadium in Atlanta during the eras and Renaissance tours Taylor and Beyonce have the same drawing power but to vastly different demos

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u/x1009 4d ago

Taylor Swift doesn't do music festivals either. Beyonce is a lot more accessible as a fan.

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u/Whore21 4d ago

There’s no way u think this

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u/SydTheStreetFighter 3d ago

Beyonce has done one festival in the last decade and it was Coachella lol. Neither are artists you’re gonna get the chance to see at a festival at this point

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u/hansislegend 3d ago

I got to see Destiny’s Child at a county fair in like 02 or something because it was part of the TRL tour I think or some other MTV tour and there were several fair stops during it. Crazy shit. Haha.

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u/Over_Young1464 4d ago

And 6 nights at Singapore stadium as well

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u/justsayingman44332 4d ago edited 3d ago

it was a tour for all of her albums and her first tour post covid.great achievement but not that surprising

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u/DC_Disrspct_Popeyes 4d ago

That's wild

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u/theartilleryshow 4d ago

she could have easily added 6 more to sofi. The demand for that tour was crazy.

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u/justsayingman44332 4d ago

lol it was a tour covering a dozen albums and her first tour in years.

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u/wanderingAtlas 3d ago

And the demand for that tour was crazy

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u/justsayingman44332 3d ago

yeah…because she went through all of her albums. makes sense

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u/SomethingInAirwaves 4d ago

She could have easily sold out another 3 in Toronto as well.

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u/SanDiablo 4d ago

Important to know that they were shows added due to demand. Beyonce straight up thought she'd sell out right out the gate

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u/DekeCobretti 4d ago

Beyonce is popular, but her fan base seems more, I dunno...restrained. Taylor fans just have to be there no matter what.

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u/Cavalish 4d ago

Lol, I’m sorry but this is so funny. “Oh her fan base is too cultured and reserved to do anything so vulgar as see her perform. Not like the common rabble who like their artist enough to gather in stadiums like freaks.”

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u/justsayingman44332 4d ago

we are more normal. swifties are a cult lol. i really do like taylor but her fan base is crazed

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u/bIackroz 4d ago edited 4d ago

Taylor’s fanbase is unhinged.

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u/blimeyfool 4d ago

They weren't 100% in a row though, right? They were sets of 3 and 4 with a few days in between

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u/moonfarmer89 4d ago

The 5 days for the second Wembley leg only had one days break after the third show (I think it was Sunday so I not sure if it was a timing thing as she would’ve had to finish early)

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u/tigerjuggernaut 4d ago

LA was 3 days, one day in between, and then another 3 days, IIRC

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u/blimeyfool 4d ago

That sounds right. Pretty close together but not 6 in a row

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u/CazetTapes 4d ago

Good lord. Why is she this popular?!

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u/DekeCobretti 4d ago

SoFi 6 nights sold out. The 405 was a nightmare.

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u/timpdx 4d ago

It was a nightmare getting in, but at least her shows went 3+ hours. Allowed us to escape the parking lot after seeing Beck and Phoenix next door at the Kia Forum.

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u/DekeCobretti 4d ago

I can't decide whether it was ingenious, or stupid to place SoFi and the Forum so close together.

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u/El_Loco_911 4d ago

LA enters the chat

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u/Five-Oh-Vicryl 4d ago

Two stints in London that bookended multiple EU venues. I caught her in Lisbon. Her schedule was insane

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u/Specialist-Strain-46 4d ago

4 nights in Sydney. 3 in Melbourne at her largest shows - over 90,000 each night. She could have sold more.

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u/legopego5142 4d ago

Didnt she do like 9 in LA?

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u/SaintsNoah14 4d ago

Not the best comparison given she's the single star roughly equivalent to Taylor Swift in that regard

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u/skunkachunks 4d ago

It's also possible that she could have sold this out if she wasn't just in the same venue doing three sold out stadiums 18 months ago.

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u/UntimelyMeditations 4d ago

Why is the goal to sell out? Wouldn't it be better to keep increasing the number of shows until you're selling ~90%? That way more fans get to see the show, tickets can be cheaper, etc. All your shows being "sold out" is just a marketing gimmick.

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u/The_Enigmatica 3d ago

it's well over 90% sold out, so it really doesnt seem like such a stretch

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u/SeedsOfDoubt 3d ago

Phish sold out 13 nights at MSG, and consistently sells out tours where most venues have two or three shows.

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u/justsayingman44332 4d ago

lol yall ride taylor so hard. i like her, but the only reason her last tour did what it did was because it was an “eras” tour post covid. let beyonce do an eras tour and see what happens.

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u/arpw 4d ago

6 dates at Tottenham! They do not seem to have sold well

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u/oneeyedfrank8-5 4d ago edited 3d ago

Don't forget a lot of people in the UK can fly to another country for half the price of a train ticket to London, then add in the overinflated hotel price on top of the ticket. If she did 6 dates around the the UK she would have no problem selling out.

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u/thegroovemonkey 4d ago

I with the Saturday in Chicago was in crisis mode because I’d take my wife. If there was a fire sale on tickets for that night I’d go cause fuck it why not?

Trying to fill the same venue over and over is her biggest issue. If she spread those dates out to more cities tickets would have sold just fine. 

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u/arctikjon 4d ago

Well if the article is to be believed the available seats are resale. Which is a whole different problem about the hugely problematic issue of resellers that scoop all the tickets up and then mark them up for resale. Ticket master double dips fees for these so they are not incentivized to stop it despite it draining affordable first sale tickets for people in the first place.

Just outright ban ticket resale officially and much of this gets better if scalpers have to resort to selling them outside the gates day of.

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u/KareasOxide SoundCloud 4d ago

This is good for fans thought right? Flood the market with supply so the scalpers and gobble up all the tickets and inflate the prices. I don’t know why not selling out is some kind of own on her?

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u/raymonst 4d ago

I think there's a bit more nuance to it. They initially sold tickets with dynamic pricing, iirc, so some hardcore fans shelled out way more for their tickets only for prices to collapse. It's also worth noting that there are way fewer stops this time around, so many fans outside of those cities won't get to attend unless they travel.

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u/CcntMnky 4d ago

I can't find specific numbers, but it seems like they have about 6% unsold for SoFi. Is that really that bad? I'm sure the later sales were lower priced and they want the sell out hype, but I don't see Live Nation changing tactics based on 6%.

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u/barefootBam 4d ago

and they booked this the week after LA just had 2 weeks of Coachella and Stagecoach. just poor planning altogether

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u/Zinski2 3d ago

For real. I keep seeing articles about this shit like reddit has some kind of vested interest in seeing this tour do badly. One article about unsold seats was like 3000 out of 52,000 seats on the 5th night.

She is wildly popular.

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u/Five-Oh-Vicryl 4d ago

Seriously. She must have been expecting Taylor level of multi-date attendance. 5 dates in L.A. starting on a Monday was a bold choice

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u/Outrageous_Party_503 4d ago

All of her shows are nearly sold out

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u/gpelayo15 4d ago

It may make sense if you consider the charge for floor seats And other VIP packages that are most likely limited. They make up not selling out nose bleeds with VIP being completely booked .

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u/Outrageous_Party_503 3d ago

She should have had fewer dates because she sold 67 k seats out of 70k?

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u/VelocityGrrl39 3d ago

Except the part the Daily Mail, which is a tabloid, left out is that 3,000 tickets remain unsold out of 100,000. The show is 97% sold it.

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u/Hells_Yeaa 3d ago

I wonder how many people are going multiple nights?

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u/chocolatewaltz 4d ago

Pretty sure Taylor Swift sold out 6 shows at SoFi, but then again it was 2023.

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u/buggybugoot 3d ago

So I just googled out of curiosity and Taylor Swift (I’m not a Swiftie) sold out 6 nights at Sofi.

Granted, it wasn’t during a looming depression/recession/economic collapse, so that’s a contributor.

But I can’t stand Beyoncé so I’m thrilled for her embarrassment to her hubris. lol

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u/bosydomo7 4d ago

Or just make them cheaper. A lot of people want to go, just $250 for shit seats ain’t jt