You sounded like you were talking in a general sense, so was I - obviously this tour had been shor (but I have seen gigs go ahead with utterly dismal attendances) but the numbersvs profit in an arena is not linear to a theatre as with an arena you have more variance in ticket prices to play with (premium seating, vip packages etc) do it doesn’t necessarily follow that a sell out theatre will make money in the long run than a half full arena, which is what you said. of course it’ll cost more but an arena with 6x more capacity doesn’t necessarily cost 6x more - it’s economies of scale (I know for example, my friend books the Roundhouse every for a festival, it hold 3000 odd people, but the quoted price of the AO Arena in Manc is less than double that hire fee for 22k) , and people always think ‘it’s an arena, so it’ll cost more then a theatre’ so you can put a higher base level ticket price and people don’t think twice - but I’m taking about the general strategy of why bands who could nowhere near fill an arena to even half max capacity which for either Manc arenas is 11k, but will get booked into there compared to a smaller venue they can guarantee selling out. A seated configuration with top tier roped off will be no where near 11k so will always be much less than half capacity, but these gigs get booked all the time

More profit could(not saying it’s guranteed) be made from a half full arena compared to a theatre - a place like the Apollo can only charge a general admission price fir standing and its pot luck for the punter if they get to the front or wedged in at the back. A seated arena and you don’t need thousands to pay a premium, but someone selling 6k tickets can find maybe a hundred superrfans who’ll pay 200 quid plus for guaranteed front row, more will pay double theatre prices for front blocks etc - can’t do that in the Apollos etc when they’re filled to capacity.

Of course it’s the promoters call as to whether a gig is called off, but you don’t think there is a continuous dialogue between promoters and venues where how many people are brought to a venue over a season? Gigs getting called off damages reputations



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2026 09:16AM by Someone-else.