Venues, capacities, and ticket sales

[Eric V]

I gathered some info from various threads and thought you all might want to appreciate a comparison of venue sizes. I would like to follow up with some stats on about how long it took to sell out each venue. I'm doing thisnot to compare Brit/Irish fan base to American fan base, but rather to just get an appreciation for how many of us fans there are out here. Also, I think its interesting to compare the fans' experience at a 1,300 capacity sold out venue, to an arena performance. Here goes a work in progress (Mrs V looking over my shoulder.... just called me a geek ):

Xmas 2005

Glasgow -- 2,000
Newcastle -- ?
Cardiff -- ?
Birmingham -- 4,500
Manchester -- ?
Brixton -- 4,700
Dublin -- ?

Correct my mistakes please. The ones with a ? are arenas, and I'm not sure how ticket sales were handled there. Did the Pogues sell out a 10,000+ arena, or did they sell out the arenas, but only 7,000 tickets were sold?... that sort of issue. Someone answer back with the number of shows and which sold out. I don't want to speculate and get it wrong. Would have gotten this from the home page, but it has been taken away.

USA 2006
D.C. -- 1,300 (2 shows, both sold out)
Atlantic City -- 3,700 (one show)
Boston -- 3,000 (two shows, one sold out)
New York -- 2,100 (three shows, all sold out)

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, who has some stats on how long each of the sold out venues took to sell out? Thanks all who help complete this.

[philipchevron]

I gathered some info from various threads and thought you all might want to appreciate a comparison of venue sizes. I would like to follow up with some stats on about how long it took to sell out each venue. I'm doing thisnot to compare Brit/Irish fan base to American fan base, but rather to just get an appreciation for how many of us fans there are out here. Also, I think its interesting to compare the fans' experience at a 1,300 capacity sold out venue, to an arena performance. Here goes a work in progress (Mrs V looking over my shoulder.... just called me a geek ):

Xmas 2005

Glasgow -- 2,000
Newcastle -- ?
Cardiff -- ?
Birmingham -- 4,500

Manchester -- ?
Brixton -- 4,700
Dublin -- ?

Correct my mistakes please. The ones with a ? are arenas, and I'm not sure how ticket sales were handled there. Did the Pogues sell out a 10,000+ arena, or did they sell out the arenas, but only 7,000 tickets were sold?... that sort of issue. Someone answer back with the number of shows and which sold out. I don't want to speculate and get it wrong. Would have gotten this from the home page, but it has been taken away.

USA 2006
D.C. -- 1,300 (2 shows, both sold out)
Atlantic City -- 3,700 (one show)
Boston -- 3,000 (two shows, one sold out)
New York -- 2,100 (three shows, all sold out)

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, who has some stats on how long each of the sold out venues took to sell out? Thanks all who help complete this.

It's not so simple, alas. Arenas are almost invariably flexible spaces, so the stage position/seating/standing are to some extent not configured until the promoter has crunched the numbers and can predict the total attendance, including walk-up business, with some accuracy.

So, in those cities where we play Arenas, we sell our shows to local promoters on the expectation that a certain attendance figure will be reached, not in the expectation that the arena will completely sell out, although it does sometimes (eg Dublin 8,000)

Further, the vast majority of our fans want floor (standing) tickets at Arenas, so you can have a situation, like we did in Birmingham in December, where the floor sells out rapidly but one can still comfortably buy a seating ticket on the day.

[philipchevron]

And we sold out 4 shows in New York, not three.

[Eric V]

And we sold out 4 shows in New York, not three.

Oops.

X-mas 2005

Glasgow -- 2,000
Newcastle -- ?
Cardiff -- ?
Birmingham -- 4,500
Manchester -- ?
Brixton -- 4,700
Dublin -- 8,000

USA 2006

D.C. -- 1,300 (2 shows, both sold out)
Atlantic City -- 3,700 (one show)
Boston -- 3,000 (two shows, one sold out)
New York -- 2,100 (four shows, all sold out)

[dawson]

manchester holds about 15000 i think

[Guest]

manchester holds about 15000 i think

[Kilkenny Cat]

From the official site.....the history page
http://www.men-arena.com/about/?page_id=68

The Arena was officially opened on Saturday 15 July 1995 when Torvill & Dean broke the UK box office attendance record for a single ice performance with over 15,000 fans. In its first operational year the venue's target of 130 events, attracting 1 million people was easily exceeded, with over 1.2 million people entertained at 143 events.

The venue's versatility has meant that it can be transformed from an intimate theatre environment for 3,000 to a state-of-the-art arena capable of accommodating 21,000.


I'm sure I've read from 2004 reviews that 20k fans were at the Pogues gig