Posted on 06/09/2006 9:15:45 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
LOS ANGELES -- Country music trio the Dixie Chicks, still taking heat for criticizing President Bush, are weathering sluggish ticket sales in several cities for their upcoming U.S. tour, industry watchers reported Thursday.
While early ticket purchases for their first major tour in three years are generally robust in Northeastern cities, initial sales have fallen short of expectations in numerous markets, especially in the Midwest and South, forcing some dates to be scrubbed.
According to Pollstar, dates in Memphis, Tennessee, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, and Fresno, California, have been dropped from the tour schedule for now, while box-office sales also were canceled for Houston.
By contrast, the group's latest album, Taking the Long Way, opened atop the U.S. pop charts last week, selling 526,000 copies during its first seven days and remaining No. 1 in its second week to notch one of the year's strongest debuts.
But with many country music stations denying the Chicks airplay, box office business is off to a slow start in places where the group has sold out in the past, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of concert industry magazine Pollstar.
Billboard magazine reported that ticket counts for shows that went on sale last weekend were averaging 5,000 to 6,000 seats per date in major markets, and less in secondary locales. Arena capacities on the tour generally top 15,000.
"Basically, they're having to rethink the entire tour at this point," Bongiovanni told Reuters. "Clearly their problems seem to be strongest in the red states," he said, referring to those areas carried by Bush in the 2004 presidential election.
A key factor in tepid sales was the continuing backlash against the Dixie Chicks by many country music stations over the anti-Bush remarks of lead singer Natalie Maines in 2003.
Publicists for the band declined to comment, as did officials for AEG, one of the companies promoting the tour.
Maines sparked an uproar when she declared during a London concert in March 2003 that the band was embarrassed to come from the same state -- Texas -- as the president. She fanned flames anew by retracting an earlier apology for "disrespecting the office of the president," telling Time magazine in a recent interview: "I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."
"Country radio in many places has really closed the door on this group," Bongiovanni said, adding that some stations have not only refused to play the Chicks' music, they have refused advertisements for their tour as well.
Still, ticket sales were strong in cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Toronto, where a second October show was added to the schedule after the first concert quickly sold out, he said.
Further complicating the Chicks' commercial outlook has been their recent transformation as a band, Bongiovanni said.
"They've moved away from being a purely country group, so their audience is changing," he said.
Bongiovanni said it was not unusual for concert schedules to be altered after being booked, but he said the Dixie Chicks tour was drawing more attention than usual "because of the politics behind it." After two shows in London this month, the tour was set to begin July 21 in Detroit.
This will be touted by the left as another sign of the Orwellian fascist censorship by Nazi Bush.
I think their comments about the "rednecks" in country music were very calculated. They wanted to create a new fan base by trashing the old.
Unfortunately for them, they didn't think through that strategy. The sort of provincial, left-wing audience they wanted to appeal to doesn't listen to banjo- and fiddle-playing trios.
YES! A HOLIDAY SPECIAL.
Houston Pinggggggggggggggggggggg
The journalists may not know the ins and outs of the retail music industry. And the industry NEVER reports returns.
You're wrong about this. There's a lot of very good banjo and fiddle type music that definitely attracts more of a lefty crowd than a right wing crowd. The combination of the folk music hey dey in the early 60s with the roots based origins of rock and roll make it a perfect fit. Bluegrass music attracts plenty of Subarus and Volvos. Someone else had the right idea. They need to make a record, or do a tour, sharing the bill with a couple of old lefty hacks. Neil Young would be perfect. Neil Young and the Chix would draw a totally left wing audience.
Liberal media ping.
How bout some objectivity - "Chicks Tour Failing" or "Cities Rejecting Dixie Chicks"
Good. I'm glad my Indianapolis kicked them to the curb. People's Republic of Illinois can have them.
The one I've seen is "Stix Hix Nix Dix Chix"
LOL. They hire Baghdad Bob?
Is there any cure for EGS?
Maybe they should play in Seattle, SF, Portland, and some of the other 85% Bush hating cities.
Oh, no doubt. The cries of "censorship" can't be far off. Why is it when idiots like the Chicks shoot their respective mouths off, it's free speech; but when Americans respond en masse to reject their ideals, it's anything but . . .
How fun to vote with your wallet!
Then why the hell is their crappy, "in you face America" CD in the country music section at Walmart?
Bixie Burquas?
And to think sales are doing well in London and Blue States!!!!
Oh Natalie, please never come back home. Lubbock Texas is ashamed to say you were raised here. Even your grandma who still resides here has said she is ashamed of your mouth.
$$$ is thicker than blood in Natalie's book
I realize there are some Pete Seeger holdouts out there, but they are small potatoes compared to the huge audiences the Chicklets were drawing a few years ago. Despite what they're now saying, they were going for a larger audience, not a few thousand people at some left-wing bluegrass bash in upstate New York.
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