Thursday, March 28, 2024

Beyonce-Jay Z Tour Selling Slowly: Tabloid Gossip May Be to Juice Sales

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Beyonce is pregnant! Jay Z is cheating! Beyonce is cheating! Solange, Beyonce’s sister, is fighting with Jay! The headlines are all over the internet and splashed on the supermarket rag racks.

Is any of it true? No, none of it. Here’s what is true: tickets are selling slow as molasses for the Jay Z-Beyonce “On the Run” tour of stadiums that’s set to start in 10 days.

Right now, there are over 11,000 tickets in motion on StubHub for the couple’s July 11th show at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands. Several more thousand are available for the second show, on July 12th.

Even on Ticketmaster.com’s own system, a quick check shows a very bald stadium, with lots of tickets for sale and official resale. Right now, getting to see the first couple of modern R&B is pretty simple. And relatively inexpensive.

All told, Beyonce and Jay Z are going to play 17 stadium dates in the US and two in Canada beginning June 25 in Miami. But right now, tickets are available in every city and at every price.

What’s happening? Over saturation. Jay Z played a year long tour with Justin Timberlake, for an album– “Magna Carta Holy Grail”– that was given away for free by Samsung. Beyonce already toured. She just finished the worldwide “Mrs. Carter” tour in March 2014. It took in over $229 million.

Even with her “Visual” album scoring a big first month last December, Beyonce just hasn’t had a breakout single like “Single Ladies” or “Crazy in Love.” The album is off the top 200 for a while now. Jay Z’s is long gone.

Maybe this would have worked at smaller venues.

And the gossip? With no denials, but lots of “unnamed sources,” my guess it’s mostly made up to keep some interest in the couple while they’re on tour. Just wait for some “staged” episodes to lure in passive ticketholders.

Meantime, surprise, guess who’s doing well? Lady Gaga. Her tour has sold very well, and the number of available seats going into each show is fairly normal. Maybe that’s because her audience has been pining for her since illness took Gaga off the road a year ago.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder !

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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