Should U2 not try to outdo the 360 tour?

[Tumbling Dice]

How is having the 7th biggest selling album worldwide "falling well below sales expections"?

Hint.  Look at the sales figures and then compare them with Bomb or ATYCLB.

Over 90% of the North American 2011 leg ticket were purchased prior to the end of 2009! So again, this was NOT a nostalgia tour in terms of the expected set list.

The poor bastards.  The casual fans I mean.  I'd have loved to see their faces when U2 opened the show with four new songs.  You can't say U2 lack a sense of homour.  It didn't last though.

[bethere]

The Stones' business manager, Prince Rupert Loewenstein, is of the opinion that tours have never actually helped sales of albums.  Instead it’s the promotional exercises in the media that does this.   Benny and Bjorne from ABBA agree with him on this.

             Well, thats a different debate form what were talking about. Were talking about the negative or positive impact of new albums on tours, NOT a tours impact on the album.

            Yes, it is possible to get away with strong album sales if you have great support from radio and other media. This happens every year. But touring can be a method to increase album sales and exposure. For artist that are locked out of the radio or other media outlets, it becomes their primary method of promotion and sales.

I think that 360 did nothing to help convert the casual hit-seeking concert goers into NLOTH album buyers and the album did nothing to increase concert ticket sales since most of the albums were bought by the existing fanbase.

             Thats all speculation not supported by ANY facts.

Take a look at the following facts about the Success of No Line On the Horizon in 2012!

THE TOP 10 SELLING ALBUMS OF 2009 WORLDWIDE

01. Susan Boyle - I Dreamed A Dream - 6.0 million copies
02. Lady GaGa - The Fame (Monster) 5.9 million copies
03. Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D. - 4.6 million copies
04. Taylor Swift - Fearless - 4.2 million copies
05. Michael Jackson - Thriller (25th Anniversary Reissue) - 4.0 million copies
06. Michael Jackson - Number Ones - 3.6 million copies
07. U2 - No Line On The Horizon - 3.5 million copies
08. Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night - 3.5 million copies
09. Michael Bublé - Crazy Love - 3.3 million copies
10. Beyoncé - I Am... Sasha Fierce - 3.2 million copies

These 'facts' don't show who bought the album or whether any sales to casual fans persuaded them to buy a concert ticket.  I speculate that the large majority of people who purchased NLOTH were existing U2 fans like me.  If you have any facts to disprove that then I'd like to see them.

           No kidding. Your points are not based on anything factual. My points are based on facts like those above. I'm not classifying and grouping U2 fans into arbitrary groups like you. There is in no evidence for doing so to the degree that your doing.

            My points are not dependent on who purchased the album or the ticket. What matters is that a successful selling album of new songs helps fill seats at the concert with people. When the album of new material does poorly though, it leads to empty seats at the tour that is supporting the album! Who actually purchased the album or ticket is irrelevant.

The only facts you've come up with shows how poorly NLOTH sold.  It doesn't show, indicate or in any way prove your bolded point.

The Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon album sold about two million copies in 1997, (at a time of higher physical album sales) which was about 5 million fewer copies than U2's Pop album sold in the same year, and they then played to five and a half million people on the Bridges to Babylon tour, which was about 1 and a half million more people than U2 played to on their PopMart tour.  Why?  Because the Stones tour in 1997 was largely a nostalgia tour as 360 was for U2 in 2009-11. 

Based on your reasoning U2 should have sold far more concert tickets for PopMart than the Stones should have sold for Bridges to Babylon.

              U2 and Stones audiances are different. I've already indicated many times, that for the Stones, the impact of a new album and new songs, is far less than it is for U2. Yet, it is still there, as we saw with the LICKS tour.

               Having the 7th biggest selling album of the year is NOT A POOR SHOWING AT ALL! ITS A MASSIVE SUCCESS. The only reason unit sales are down in comparsion to past years is because of the massive changes in the market.

            By the way, Bridges To Babylon sold 3 million copies, NOT just 2 million.

[Tumbling Dice]

Do you see the comparison?  The Stones sold far more concert tickets than they sold albums in 1997 when they were a nostalgia act and U2 sold far more concert tickets than albums in 2009-11 (for the first time ever) when they became a nostalgia act.

             The only reason U2 sold less albums than concert tickets in 2009-2011 was because of the massive changes in the market. Sales all across the music business for top selling albums are down by 90% since 2000. This makes it impossible for any big artist to sell more albums than they do tickets, with few exceptions.

Beyonce managed to sell more albums than concert tickets.  Why?  Because she isn't a nostalgia act.  But U2 are.

            As for the Stones, they still sold more concert tickets when they were touring in support of a brand new album, than they did when they were not on Licks.

COINCIDENCE

And I've already explained the Stones stadium fatigue was responsible for that.  But you don't pay any attention.

[So Cruel]

How is having the 7th biggest selling album worldwide "falling well below sales expections"?

Very simply really. And this is what we have been saying all along.

U2 have bigger expectations then regular artists. They have a 30 year history where their top albums sell over 10 million units and their bottom albums sell in the 3-4 million range. They can sell 3 million units just based on their massive fanbase, but to get to 10 million the album has to connect with the general public. No Line DID NOT connect with the general public. The band basically admitted it was a failure. Adam Clayton talked publicly that Boots was the wrong choice for the 1st single and that with a lack of a big song (like Beautiful Day or Vertigo) the album didn't take off. If it was such a big success why would band members talk like that? You keep bringing up the 7th place finish, but with the size of their fanbase they can get to that amount just by releasing an album. For a newer band to sell in the millions it's impressive because they don't have a fanbase that will go buy 3 million albums without even hearing the material. U2 has that fanbase.

[Tumbling Dice]

              U2 and Stones audiances are different. I've already indicated many times, that for the Stones, the impact of a new album and new songs, is far less than it is for U2. Yet, it is still there, as we saw with the LICKS tour.

Where's your Facts to prove this?

The reality is both the Stones and U2 are huge brands who are going to flog oodles of tickets regardless of how the album performs in the charts.

               Having the 7th biggest selling album of the year is NOT A POOR SHOWING AT ALL! ITS A MASSIVE SUCCESS. The only reason unit sales are down in comparsion to past years is because of the massive changes in the market.

If you'd said that to Paul McGuinness after he'd seen the sales figures, he'd have smacked you in the face. LOL

[Tumbling Dice]

If the success of 360 was based on No Line being a huge album, then please explain to me why the band that sits at number 3 on your beloved chart (with 1 million more units sold then No Line) were the back up band to U2 at the 360 show I attended?

 

[JTBaby]

NLOTH fell well below their sales expectations.  But there ticket sales expectations were met because of a fanbse built up over three decades including a large new section of fans from the 00s gained through the commercial success of ATYCLB and Bomb.

I won't call PopMart a nostalgia tour because they ended it playing 8 songs from their latest album, but I'll call 360 a nostalgia tour because they ended it playing more songs from an album recorded nearly 20 years earlier than from their latest album.

This is obvious to everyone except one person.

There's more Football on in a few minutes though so will be back later to see how many bolded irrelevent factoids are regurgitated.

      Well, another posts focused on another forum member instead of U2.

The post was most prescient

[bethere]

How is having the 7th biggest selling album worldwide "falling well below sales expections"?

Hint.  Look at the sales figures and then compare them with Bomb or ATYCLB.

Over 90% of the North American 2011 leg ticket were purchased prior to the end of 2009! So again, this was NOT a nostalgia tour in terms of the expected set list.

The poor bastards.  The casual fans I mean.  I'd have loved to see their faces when U2 opened the show with four new songs.  You can't say U2 lack a sense of homour.  It didn't last though.

       Hint, you can't compare unit to unit sales between those albums because they were released at different times when the market for ALL albums were radically different. ATYCLB was released BEFORE the start of the massive sales decline in the music industry which continues to this day. HTDAAB although released in a slightly lower sales period in 2004, was still released at a time when the market was far different than it was in 2009 or today.

       Given those market changes, the only way to compare albums released in 2009 to those released in 2004 or earlier is to look at how they finished the year in sales vs the other albums that year. Did the album make the top 20 for that year, the top 10?

         There are almost no albums in 2012 that can sell anywhere near the sales that were seen for ATYCLB from 2000 and HTDAAB from 2004.

        There were only 3 albums in 2012 that reached 3 million sales or more worldwide!

[bethere]

Do you see the comparison?  The Stones sold far more concert tickets than they sold albums in 1997 when they were a nostalgia act and U2 sold far more concert tickets than albums in 2009-11 (for the first time ever) when they became a nostalgia act.

             The only reason U2 sold less albums than concert tickets in 2009-2011 was because of the massive changes in the market. Sales all across the music business for top selling albums are down by 90% since 2000. This makes it impossible for any big artist to sell more albums than they do tickets, with few exceptions.

Beyonce managed to sell more albums than concert tickets.  Why?  Because she isn't a nostalgia act.  But U2 are.

            As for the Stones, they still sold more concert tickets when they were touring in support of a brand new album, than they did when they were not on Licks.

COINCIDENCE

And I've already explained the Stones stadium fatigue was responsible for that.  But you don't pay any attention.

          The Stones had already been away from stadiums in the USA and Europe for over 4 years by the time the Licks tour came around. There was no stadium fatigue. Even though they only played about 13 stadium shows in the United States they struggled to fill them up. This is the tour they did without a new album of all brand new songs. The results speak for themselves.

           Strange that you make a claim without Beyonce without providing any numbers. Her last studio album of all new material sold 2.1 million copies worldwide. She did not tour to support the album though. But, I guess your assuming that Beyonce cannot play to 2.1 million people worldwide correct?

            The history of the music business is filled with artist that have much more successful recording careers than they do concert careers. Its one thing to get people to buy your album that they get to listen to for years and years, its another thing to get people to pay even more than that to listen to you play for just two hours. You have to be really popular in order to attract people that are willing to pay that type of money and only get 2 hours of entertainment.

            So no, having a bad ratio of album sales to ticket sales does not mean your currently HUGE!

[bethere]

              U2 and Stones audiances are different. I've already indicated many times, that for the Stones, the impact of a new album and new songs, is far less than it is for U2. Yet, it is still there, as we saw with the LICKS tour.

Where's your Facts to prove this?

The reality is both the Stones and U2 are huge brands who are going to flog oodles of tickets regardless of how the album performs in the charts.

               Having the 7th biggest selling album of the year is NOT A POOR SHOWING AT ALL! ITS A MASSIVE SUCCESS. The only reason unit sales are down in comparsion to past years is because of the massive changes in the market.

If you'd said that to Paul McGuinness after he'd seen the sales figures, he'd have smacked you in the face. LOL

            The facts that prove it are the historical Rolling Stones album sales statistics and concert selling statistics over time as well as U2' statistics in those same areas.

              Again, look at what happened on POPMART. The POP album sold relatively poorly and as a result, the tour struggled to sell tickets. U2 being a massivly huge brand then did NOT prevent this from happening!

           Paul McGuinness knows the band is not immune to market conditions. If everyone is selling less than they did from five or 10 years ago because people can not obtain music for free, then U2's sales are going to slide like everyone elses.

[bethere]

The Stones' business manager, Prince Rupert Loewenstein, is of the opinion that tours have never actually helped sales of albums.  Instead it’s the promotional exercises in the media that does this.   Benny and Bjorne from ABBA agree with him on this.

             Well, thats a different debate form what were talking about. Were talking about the negative or positive impact of new albums on tours, NOT a tours impact on the album.

            Yes, it is possible to get away with strong album sales if you have great support from radio and other media. This happens every year. But touring can be a method to increase album sales and exposure. For artist that are locked out of the radio or other media outlets, it becomes their primary method of promotion and sales.

I think that 360 did nothing to help convert the casual hit-seeking concert goers into NLOTH album buyers and the album did nothing to increase concert ticket sales since most of the albums were bought by the existing fanbase.

             Thats all speculation not supported by ANY facts.

Take a look at the following facts about the Success of No Line On the Horizon in 2012!

THE TOP 10 SELLING ALBUMS OF 2009 WORLDWIDE

01. Susan Boyle - I Dreamed A Dream - 6.0 million copies
02. Lady GaGa - The Fame (Monster) 5.9 million copies
03. Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D. - 4.6 million copies
04. Taylor Swift - Fearless - 4.2 million copies
05. Michael Jackson - Thriller (25th Anniversary Reissue) - 4.0 million copies
06. Michael Jackson - Number Ones - 3.6 million copies
07. U2 - No Line On The Horizon - 3.5 million copies
08. Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night - 3.5 million copies
09. Michael Bublé - Crazy Love - 3.3 million copies
10. Beyoncé - I Am... Sasha Fierce - 3.2 million copies

These 'facts' don't show who bought the album or whether any sales to casual fans persuaded them to buy a concert ticket.  I speculate that the large majority of people who purchased NLOTH were existing U2 fans like me.  If you have any facts to disprove that then I'd like to see them.

           No kidding. Your points are not based on anything factual. My points are based on facts like those above. I'm not classifying and grouping U2 fans into arbitrary groups like you. There is in no evidence for doing so to the degree that your doing.

            My points are not dependent on who purchased the album or the ticket. What matters is that a successful selling album of new songs helps fill seats at the concert with people. When the album of new material does poorly though, it leads to empty seats at the tour that is supporting the album! Who actually purchased the album or ticket is irrelevant.

Bethere, you can't just look at a chart and have tunnel vision. According to you, U2 sold out stadiums for 360 based on the massive success of No Line, not because of the other factors many of us have pointed out.

If the success of 360 was based on No Line being a huge album, then please explain to me why the band that sits at number 3 on your beloved chart (with 1 million more units sold then No Line) were the back up band to U2 at the 360 show I attended? If you are correct then this makes no sense, does it? Shouldn't the Black Eyed Peas with the 3rd highest selling album of the year have been the ones headlining the show? Because according to you concert attendance is based on album sales. But this can't be so because the band with the higher selling album opened for the band with the lower selling album. Maybe we were right and the bands history, marketing of the tour, changes over the last 20 years, etc...had a lot to do with the success of 360. You can use whatever concert/album sales stats you want to support your theory but it doesn't make it right.

              Because each artist has a different ratio of album sales to concert ticket sales. The Black Eyed Peas already have an unusually low ratio of album sales to ticket sales, at least at the time of 360 tour. U2 have always had a very strong ratio since the Unforgettable Fire Tour and Album. Some artist are strong at selling both albums and tickets, and others are not. Every artist is different. Some like Mariah Carey have always been strong album sellers but struggle when it comes to concerts. Others like Taylor Swift are strong at both selling albums and selling concert tickets. But even in a case like Mariah Carey, she will do better with whatever concert tour she is doing, if she is supporting a relatively successful album for her.

              Now, having explained that, if the Black Eyed Peas had only sold half of what they did in 2009, you would have seen a much smaller level of demand to see them live. That is how album sales impact concert demand for each artist.

            My points are based on raw facts, album sales, concert ticket sales, album sales positions for the year, airplay, etc. U2 struggled to sell tickets on POPMART, because the POP album was relatively poorly received by the public. 360 was a success because the NLOTH album was received very well by the public being one of the biggest selling albums of the year.

             The difference here(between POPMART and 360) is the success of the album and the new material.

           Likewise, although the Stones are not as heavily impacted by their new material, they experienced a dip in concert attendance when they went on the Licks tour in 2002-2003 because they were not touring in support of a brand new album.

            If the Black Eyed Peas have a poor selling album on their next tour, it will indeed have a very negative impact on the tour.

              STING just went on his Back To Bass Tour. He has not released a new album of all new material in 9 years. Typcially when he visits a city like Philadelphia, he will play one show at a 20,000 seat arena and usually come close to filling it to capacity. On this tour though, he had to scale down and play two shows at a 3,000 seat theater. Had he been touring behind a a relatively successful brand new album, he'd be playing that 20,000 seat arena as he has done many times in his solo career.

[bethere]

How is having the 7th biggest selling album worldwide "falling well below sales expections"?

Very simply really. And this is what we have been saying all along.

U2 have bigger expectations then regular artists. They have a 30 year history where their top albums sell over 10 million units and their bottom albums sell in the 3-4 million range. They can sell 3 million units just based on their massive fanbase, but to get to 10 million the album has to connect with the general public. No Line DID NOT connect with the general public. The band basically admitted it was a failure. Adam Clayton talked publicly that Boots was the wrong choice for the 1st single and that with a lack of a big song (like Beautiful Day or Vertigo) the album didn't take off. If it was such a big success why would band members talk like that? You keep bringing up the 7th place finish, but with the size of their fanbase they can get to that amount just by releasing an album. For a newer band to sell in the millions it's impressive because they don't have a fanbase that will go buy 3 million albums without even hearing the material. U2 has that fanbase.

        1. Your completely ignoring the market and what has happened to it since the year 2000. The unit sales that were attained prior to the collapse of the music industry are no longer applicable to albums released today or as far back as 2007. In the year 2001, over 100 albums reached the million sales mark in the United States alone. This year only 10 albums were able to do that. POP finished at the #50 position in the USA in 1997 with 1.3 million in sales. In 2012, the #50 position would only give you 400,000 copies sold. So U2's old unit sales history as well as all other artist old unit sales history cannot be compared to sales today because of the drastic changes in the music industry due to people being able to obtain music for free currently.

        2. You allege to know the size of U2's fanbase, their age, their income, etc. Yet, you have nothing that factually backs any of that up. In contrast, the facts I use are album sales, and concert ticket sales over time for all these artist. I stick to those facts and don't get involve with unknowns like who is a casual fan, a medium fan, a hardcore fan etc. What matters is sales period, regardless of who is buying the album or buying the ticket.The most popular album of the year is the one that sells the most. If U2 sold more albums than anyone in 2009, they would have the most popular album of the year, regardless of who purchased the album. Having the #7 album of the year means that while they did not have the most popular album of the year, they did have ONE of the most popular albums of the year.

            When you have the #50 album of the year, like U2 did in the USA in 1997, then in the strict sense of the phrase, you certainly wouldn't say that U2 had one of the most popular albums of the year in the USA that year. There were 49 albums that sold more that year. By U2's previous standards, that was not that good.

            Say what you want about the U2 fanbase, it failed to PREVENT the slide experienced in the bands album sales performance VS other artist in 1997. It failed to PREVENT the tour from struggling to sell tickets. Your theory about the fanbase falls FLAT every time it runs into the facts POP and POPMART.

             

                   

[JTBaby]

[bethere]

Many in this thread of constantly compared U2 to the Stones, and while they both hold the highest positions in the concert industry, when it comes to selling albums they are light years apart currently!

Lets take a look at how each bands previous studio album did on the year end global chart in the year the album was released.

The Rolling Stones - A Bigger Bang - 2005 - This album FAILED to sell enough copies in 2005 to make the year end top 40 GLOBAL album sales chart.

U2 - No Line On The Horizon - 2009 - This album succeeded in becoming the 7th biggest selling album of 2009 WORLDWIDE!

                     This is a huge difference between the two bands and it shows that U2 is still generally as popular as they have ever been when it comes to selling albums.

[xy]

Popmart really has no business calling any other U2 tour a GH tour...

10 new songs first date
8 by the end

360

7 at the beginning
2 at the end

2 of Popmart's new songs were dropped by the end of leg 1 (Do you feel loved, If god will send his angels) .... And for most part it was same set each night. Absolutely nothing but hits from older albums, including the yet unbeaten U2 live record of having 0 songs from the previous album, Zooropa. It didn't span over 3 years., either.

Meanwhile, 360 added 5/6 new songs* in its second year (Stingray, Glastonbury, Mercy, North Star, Boy falls from the sky, Every breaking wave). Only the last leg saw new material drop down, probably due to Glastonbury's setlist. And 360 was down to 3, but mostly 4 (Magnificent only missed a few nights, it wasn't dropped completely).

This doesn't even factor in the fact of the several oldies U2 played in stadiums/the biggest shows of their career : UF, Your blue room, Miss Sarajevo, Love rescue me, Scarlet, Ultraviolet, the Batman song ...or the Boy songs, Gloria, First time, Zoo station, Who's gonna ride...and Love is blindness on Vertigo. Hardly casual fans stuff.

*depending on whether one considers Stingray as merely a live intro or a U2 song.