American Idol Concert Numbers

Well, some concert stats are finally being released and they are pretty grim compared to previous years. Yes, they are even scarier than the dire Season 9 numbers. Sigh. What a mess Idol was this year. Normally, I would blame Ken Warwick, but even he never mucked up this bad all on his own. I think that the producers, the wretched judging panel, determination to get a female winner at all costs, aging format and theme nights practically designed to chase viewers away (Burt Bacharach – seriously? That is how you answer the criticism that the themes are old? That there are too many ballads? Seriously?) combined to leave a sour memory in the viewer’s minds. Many would rather forget the entire season than celebrate by going to the tour.

July 27: Grand Prairie, TX; Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie; 2,425 of 4275 (47%): $145,688
Aug 14: Newark, NJ; Prudential Center; 2,653 of 7,251 (37%): $144,363
Aug 15: Uniondale, NY; Nassaue Veterans Memorial Coliseum; 2,893 of 7,138 (41%): $149,338
Aug 19: Boston, MA; Agganis Arena; 2,545 of 3,035 (84%): $142,612
Aug 30: Louisville, KY; KFC Yum! Center; 2,129 of 6,648 (32%): $83,579
Aug 31: Nashville, TN; Bridgestone Arena; 2,469 of 3,176 (78%): $137,755

Number of Concerts Reported: 6
Total Number of Tickets Sold: 15,114
Total Revenue: $803,335

Total Number of Tickets Available: 31,523
% of Tickets Sold: 48%

Avg. Number of Attendees Per Concert: 2,519
Avg. Revenue Per Concert: $133,889
Avg. Ticket Price: $53.15

Okay, if we want to look at the bright side, Louisville wasn’t the lowest attended concert in AI history. Evansville, IN in Season 3 only had 2,060 people in attendance. Of course, they somehow managed to earn more with fewer tickets sold ($91,080). And in Season 5, the Greensboro concert sold more tickets (15,337) than Season 12 could in 6. And, in Season 8, Little Rock made more revenue ($820,823) in one night.

They did manage to right-size some of the venues. Typically, you want 60% of a venue sold to break even. Of the 6 reported, 2 managed to do that.

Because we have so few concert dates, we don’t have the full picture. It’s possible only the worst concerts were reported. It’s also tough to compare to other seasons. Instead of publishing the usual summary of stats (Season 5 sold 646,996 tickets, but it had 10 times as many concert dates), we can look at averages.

Average Ticket Sales, Average Revenue
Season 1: 8,598 $269,553
Season 2: 9,937 $379,190
Season 3: 5,120 $232,090
Season 4: 9,118 $403,821
Season 5: 10,966 $598,168
Season 6: 6,969 $417,697
Season 7: 9,270 $563,030
Season 8: 9,298 $578,301
Season 9: 5,718 $289,347
Season 10: 8,589 $468,138
Season 11: 5,616 $320,289
Season 12: 2,519 $133,889

Season 12 ticket sales/revenues from Rickey.

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Kirsten has had a long love affair with numbers. Marry that with her love of cheese and the Numbers Threads at MJs were born.