With reports from the first few shows that there are unsold seats and sections curtained off, what does this mean for the future for U2. Even last year, I noticed it on the JT tour, with sections on the upper decks in Pittsburgh and Buffalo curtained off. It is evident that U2's popularity on the live circuit at least in North America is dwindling with tickets still left for this tour even in major cities like LA, Boston, Chicago, New York, which would be unheard of before.
I found it hard to believe that U2 don't notice this themselves or choose to turn a blind eye on the empty or curtained off sections. I'm sure it is not going to get easier of future tours. I think they have over-saturated themselves over the last few years with 3 tours in the last 4 years.
Also after this tour, I think U2 might have lost a lot of the casual fans, who are going to remember that this tour, U2 played a whole lot of new songs that they didn't know, didn't play any JT songs and probably might want to sit out the next tour which might be a good thing (maybe not for U2) but for us die hard fans, in that we might (and I'm probably dreaming) get a tour focused on the core fans rather than the casual fans, in terms of mixing it up more and playing more rarities.
Also, not only casual fans might be done with U2 for a while, but also U2's hardcore fan base. With a lot of us complaining with U2's static set and nothing being changed for multiple nights in the same city, a lot of us are saying they are done with going to multiple shows, which are definitely going to effect ticket sales on the next tour. With high ticket prices and static set list, I think a large portion of U2's hardcore base will be going to less shows.
Easy way to bring back both sets of fans is lower tickets prices. People on the fence thinking whether to go, might choose to buy a ticket and hard core fans might go for more shows if tickets were lower.