So is indie sensation Arcade Fire in trouble to sell tickets? It seems it is the case to a certain level. According to Startribune, the Canadian band has turned to Groupon, the famous deal-of-the-day website, to sell tickets for some of their shows in major cities across the US.
The Groupon website was proposing some serious deals for the Target Center in Minneapolis ($32 and $22 instead of $64 and $40) and there were similar deals for concerts at the Aaron’s Amphitheater at Lakewood in Atlanta, the Chaifetz Arena in St Louis, the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, and probably for other shows that have escaped me. The tickets seem to be all gone now, which means Arcade Fire is not totally in trouble, but since prices were as low as $22, it is not a real surprise! Alas for me, a $22 Arcade Fire ticket is an opportunity that will never occur if you live in Los Angeles!
Still, this is a bit worrisome for Arcade Fire, if they have to sell tickets at such low prices, we have to wonder, is the hype beginning to evaporate? Last time they booked a show in Los Angeles (the Palladium) I couldn’t get a ticket even though I was on Ticketmaster at the second the show went on sale. But it’s LA, not Louisville or Minneapolis. To be fair, I checked the size of these arenas and they have a very large capacity: Target Center in Minneapolis: 20,500, Aaron’s Amphitheater at Lakewood: 19,000, the Chaifetz Arena in St Louis: 10,600, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia: 20,400, KFC Yum! Center in Louisville:17,500, so they are basically huge places compared to the LA Palladium (3,700). However, Arcade Fire has ambitions, the Reflektor-big-arena-tour ambition, and they don’t seem to rise to their expectations.
However, if Arcade Fire fans are like me, they are not gonna spend any good money on arena seats. This is not a band I want to see with binoculars, I want to be under their noses in an intimate venue, as I always do. But that’s just me, they have an appeal for this young hipster crowd and young people buy arena tickets,… after all Taylor Swift sold out Los Angeles’ 18,000-seat Staples Center 11 times. So may be Arcade Fire is already the Lionel Ritchie of indie, despite all their U2-like aspirations.
