Well, on the bright side it could be moved to Radio City. A much better venue to see MK than MSG. No offense, but I'm not too surprised that most of the boomer aged people who will attend this show don't want to sit on a folding chair for a little over two hours.
No offense as well, but NA is not Europe. It's very clear the reason why MK plays smaller venues there. In Europe MK had sold out many venues like the MSG or even bigger.
In my opinion this concert is a big failure by management in many aspects, first of all, MK had just played two sold out concerts at the Beacon in NY, and after that, in less than a month (or maybe a little more, I didnt checked) you book the MSG, that is too much big for the American audiences, in a city where he already played before?
Adding Bonnie Raitt maybe was a strategy to raise sales but... again, he already played NY and in a better venue for fans. MK doesn't sell that much in NA for such a big venue and the most important. The prices... The worst places at the MSG had the only normal prices, but most of the bad and/or far away seats had prices like the firsts rows in Europe!
Everything about this gig is a big big failure. If you see the overall seating map for it, it's more than 3/5 empty. None of the big hangars in Europe had been like that two hours after the general sale was open. Most of them were almost sold out, and sometimes, sold out. Venues like the Sportpalais in Antwerpen, which is bigger than the MSG.
This is going to be a sad farewell for MK big tours, playing a more than 3/5 empty venue, but, that's what happens when you do this very big mistake of booking a so big venue in a city where he just had played two consecutive nights in a country where he sells so little for those big arenas.
Like Dan says, the Radio City Music Hall would had been sold out for sure, even probably 3 consecutive nights at the Radio City would had sold out probably, or very close...
Correct. You don't just move an event to another venue, 3 weeks before a show. Can anyone supply an example of this being done even once before, for any artist, at a USA venue, aside from obvious situations where the venue had physical issues (damage, etc)? Then why think it could happen now?
And, how would you handle the reseating of people who had already bought tickets? Issue new tickets this late? Radio City seats about 6,000. Looks to me that at least that many tickets have been sold to MSG. For anyone who is suggesting the move, how would you suggest that they handle that situation? Send letters saying your ticket is no longer valid to those who bought seats after 6000 were sold?
The venue size, along with premium pricing as if it were a small venue, is probably a big factor in the lack of sales. I passed on buying a presale ticket, as the price for two tickets is more than my cross country air fare for a week vacation(holiday) to the west coast. If even I passed on buying tickets for this show (after attending at least one NY show every tour), how would anyone expect that it would even close to sell out with sales to more casual fans?
I'll also throw in that the crossover between MK fans and Raitt fans is probably small. (Yes, I know the few who love both acts will speak up. No doubt there are some, just not many!) If the opening act was another choice, more in the rock genre, then it would have a better chance at selling out.
I expected to see some Groupon discounts, or something like that, to increase sales, but as of yet there is no real new effort in marketing this show!
If you look you can see that Peter Frampton, who is doing a final tour due to medical issues, also has a show near the end of his tour at MSG, on Sept 13. While not as many seats remain unsold at the MK show, there are a significant number of seats available, just 9 days before that show.
Just thinking about how if they combined Frampton/Knopfler concerts into one show, in my estimation, it would have been sold out months ago, and probably much more enjoyable to those in attendance. (I just saw Frampton last week, and it was a great show. I think you'd be surprised at his level of play and energy compared to MK. Check out an example
)
