Miley Cyrus has launched her first non-Hannah Montana tour, one that goes through arenas in North America and the U.K. from September to December. The 16-year-old, who has signed on for a fourth season of Disney’s “Hannah Montana,” is Ticketmaster’s first full arena tour to employ paperless ticketing.
The results have been interesting. The spin, even more so.
Cyrus is certainly a good pick to introduce paperless ticketing to the U.S. The “Hannah Montana” tour grabbed its share of attention, with kids and their parents clamoring for tickets. The quick sellouts, and subsequent ticket sales on secondary market Web sites, drew attention from politicians, and TM legal adviser Joe Freeman went from market to market, explaining the process to various city and state government bodies.
This time out, Ticketmaster – whose CEO Irving Azoff also runs the company that manages Cyrus – made the tickets paperless. Fans buy them online using a credit card, then bring the credit card (and maybe the parent who owns it) to the venue to get into the show.
But according to ticket broker-friendly Ticketnews.com, in an article titled “Miley Cyrus Concerts Bomb At Box Office,” paperless ticketing may have been a significant factor for empty seats 48 hours later.
“This morning, lower level seats were available from Ticketmaster and ComcastTix for Cyrus’s performances” in Boston and Portland, Ore., respectively, the article reported June 14.
“Consumers stayed away from paperless tickets in part because of convenience and logistic issues,” TicketNetwork CEO Don Vaccaro told Ticket News. “Front Line Management’s marriage to Ticketmaster may have cost Miley dearly.”
To be fair to Ticket News, there are single floor seats still available at approximately $80, according to a search by Pollstar at Ticketmaster.com for three arenas. However, searching for a pair of tickets was another story: The best pair of seats available were in the upper decks.
It should also be noted that 14-year-old fans of “Hannah Montana” two years ago are now, like, driving cars and stuff and may have moved on to other musical heroes.
And as far as the tour being a “bomb,” it’s hard to say what a measure of success is when not talking about selling out an arena tour in five minutes. For anything other than an immediate sellout, the numbers are not yet available: TM and promoters don’t provide the public with rolling ticket counts.
Click here for the complete TicketNews.com article.