Rock band Arcade Fire has struggled to fill arenas on its North American tour, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper.
In Québec City, Canada, only 4,263 fans showed up, while in the US the numbers were 4,004 in Tampa, 5,614 in Austin and 5,051 in Dallas, according to figures from Billboard and Pollstar. All of the venues have capacities of at least 10,000.
The group has played to larger crowds in some cities, including Los Angeles and New York. It also added a second show at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.
At its Vancouver concert, frontman Win Butler acknowledged the attendance disparity: “We’ve played cities three times as big with half as many people, so this is really a thing of beauty for us,” he told the crowd of 15,000.
The low sales could be because of some negative reviews about the band’s new album, ‘Everything Now’, in addition to its marketing campaign, which was met with some criticism, the report added.
Its 2017 Ottawa gig in front of 5,739 fans generated revenues of C$396,849 (£236,000/€268,000/$310,000), according to figures reported to Pollstar. At the same venue in 2014, a crowd of 9,798 grossed C$568,064.
“That might be a little bit of poor planning or poor forecast from the tour promoter,” said Marie Connolly, an economics professor at Université du Québec à Montréal who has studied the concert industry.
Image: Liliane Callegari
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