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.
Agreed.
Its more than red state/blue state... there are plenty of dems in red states.. certainly enough to make a music show profitable.. the problem is the chix decided in an even greater fit of stupidity than bashing Bush on stage was to then follow it up by saying "We are through with country music"....
That just took already gaping wound and turned it into a festering puss filled amputate it now sort of problem.
That act expanded their stupidity from people who didn't politically agree with them, to the virtually their entire fan base in one small swoop.
Can't give 1/2 to 2/3 your fan base the finger and expect to not pay a price.. but then then basically give the finger to 90%-100% of your fan base right after that just was beyond stupid.
Now here they are relying on those same fans of country music that they said they were done with, and then advertising for their tour on those same stations that play country music that they said they wanted nothing else to do with....
They look like hypocrites, and rightly so... Entertainers are entertainers.. you step and fetch for money! You need to shut up, and know your damned role.
Let this be a lesson to anyone coming up, just because you get lots of money and are surrounded by yes men, doesn't mean you are godlike.. you aren't. Shut up and play.
I had their early CD's, and used to listen to them all the time while I walked. They have since gone in the garbage. I won't listen to them ever again. I hope they go bankrupt.
Don't mess with Texas!
We just want y'all to know that we're ashamed that the Dixie Chicks are from Texas.
I'm sorry to report that there's no cure for the European Geophysical Society (EGS).
Currently there are treatments which, thanks to modern scientific research, improve every year, but, alas, no cure.
'Zackly!
;-)
LOL! Very good!
Good point. Their ticket to the mainstream was Country, and now they've blown it.
Thanks for the info on BATR.
First, they dissed Pres. Bush in England a couple of years ago.
Then they made an apology, sort of.
Then, just recently and in conjunction with this new album and tour, they announced that they were taking back their apology.
Aren't they just brilliant!!!
Let's see,is it....
I guess maybe it's all three, lol!
So long, Ditsy Twits! Don't let Florida hit you in the a$$ on your way (Mid-)east!
On another thread on this subject, yesterday, a person with insider info said that the Chick's label is Sony, and Sony has a "no returns" policy (oh, I'd love to work in Sony's distribution center! a dream!).
Dixie Chicks are hot, taste great, and go well with cold slaw.
You're welcome - they have a page on their website where you can listen to some of their songs.
Actually, there is. EGS doesn't exist any more (since 2003), the EGU took over.
Until this politcal storm came up, I'd never heard of them. Maybe I'm out of it, but I don't listen to anything written after 1791, that's the year Mozart died.
ROTFL!!! During one of their pledge drives!
How about the Lard As* Loud Mouths of Lillith Fair?
Folks like their sound as record sales would indicate. They don't like the chicks as concert ticket sales show.
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