Jay-Z’s disastrous ‘4:44’ tour has already been cancelled in Fresno. Is that just the beginning?
Is Jay-Z’s 4:44 tour a complete and total disaster?
Live Nation says Jay-Z is killing it. But a flood of shockingly cheap seats across multiple markets suggests the opposite. Even worse: Jay-Z flat-out canceled his Fresno performance, with slow sales suspected as the culprit.
Now, fans fear further cancellations as ticket prices drop below $10.
The Fresno show was actually slated for November 1st. We didn’t find out about the cancellation until this weekend, after fans had already collected their refunds. “Based on tickets available online earlier this week, the concert seemed to have slow sales,” the Fresno B reported.
It now looks like the rapper was trying to quietly shut down the Fresno date. Last week, we reported that Jay-Z’s tour was facing sluggish sales and half-filled arenas, with tickets dropping as low as $6 in Anaheim. That stirred an email from a pissed Fresno fan, who pointed to an abrupt cancellation (and lots of cheap seats).
Meanwhile, sales are dropping below $10 in multiple upcoming 4:44 tour dates.
Here’s just a quick sampling of the bargains available as of this weekend.
Dallas (November 7th): $16.55
Orlando (November 11th): $17.55
Nashville (November 15th): $8.55
Sacramento (December 17th): $11.81
+ Jay-Z’s ‘4:44’ Tour Is a Disaster: $6 Seats, Half-Filled Stadiums…
The bargain basement tickets could drop lower. In Anaheim, one fan noticed a shockingly-low $6 ticket. That was an obvious sign of sluggish demand, and it wasn’t an accident. Moments later, a flood of $11 tickets hit the market, signaling serious problems for 4:44 ahead.
Meanwhile, it looks like Jay-Z’s handlers and Live Nation are furiously spinning the situation. A Billboard article published Sunday claims that 4:44 is going to be Jay-Z’s highest-grossing tour ever, citing Live Nation sources. But the logic offered by Billboard makes little sense.
Here’s how Billboard tried to make a $6 ticket sound like great news:
“The Jay-Z tickets selling for $6 a pop on StubHub don’t reflect soft demand for his tour: they’re actually a sign that the hip-hop star has successfully priced ticket scalpers out of the game by charging market rates for the best seats in the house.”
We’re unclear how the presence of $6 seats makes people more likely to buy super-expensive, premium tickets. Or, chases scalpers away. But beyond super-cheap tickets, most dates on Jay-Z’s tour are showing massive availability. All of which is likely to drive prices further downward — and even prompt cancellations.
Yet another biased article from this site about Jay-Z – “Jay-Z’s disastrous ‘4:44’ tour has already been cancelled in Fresno/Is Jay-Z’s 4:44 tour a complete and total disaster?/Jay-Z’s handlers.” So bitter.
I seem to remember another one some time ago referring to Jay Z as a “nightmare boss” in the title, but with nothing to substantiate it in the article. This is one of the many sites that’s been consistently pushing for Tidal to fail too.
“It now looks like the rapper was trying to quietly shut down the Fresno date”
You finding out something late doesn’t mean he was trying to quietly shut it down. Everyone got an email about this and there were articles about the cancellation.
“sales are dropping below $10 in multiple upcoming 4:44 tour dates”
And you proceed to link a total of 1 date, which is Nashville. Interesting that you neglected to mention dates in New York, Toronto, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Vegas where prices are high and tickets are still being sold.
What exactly are you trying to communicate in this article? A majority of the dates are selling out (or close to it) and these cheap tickets are by resellers for shitty nosebleed seats. Also, the layout of the tour means more tickets are available than usual. The Billboard article even cited how 10% of the tickets are sold on the day of the concert without price drops.
“But the logic offered by Billboard makes little sense.”
Did you actually read the report? The tour is currently outgrossing his previous solo tour, which was one of the highest hip-hop grossing tours with $49 million. They compared venues and revenues are already considerably higher this year.
“We’re unclear how the presence of $6 seats makes people more likely to buy super-expensive, premium tickets. ”
Aren’t you supposed to do this for a living? The point is that the tickets are highly priced for desirable seats and the less desirable ones are scalped for cheap, meaning scalpers are not benefiting as much as they usually aim to.
“most dates on Jay-Z’s tour are showing massive availability”
No they aren’t. These are roughly 17-20K venues and the absolute maximum of tickets available for the most available venue is probably like 4K. Curious to see if it would be posted on this site when the complete gross of the tour is available.
Jay-Z + Live Nation’s pants are getting pulled down. So of course they’re getting Billboard to write some puff piece to save their jobs. Jay-Z’s probably threatening to fire people, even though it’s his ‘laughable’ idea that 17 year olds want to listen to some 50 year old rapper. So you have a really bad spin job happening to save everyone’s skin.
Yeah, that’s why his album was number 1 for 2 weeks and has already sold over 500K without Spotify streams. There definitely aren’t any younger people buying the tickets, even though you could literally see the reaction of people from that age range when the album dropped.
So I wrote the Jay-Z article for Billboard, the one referenced in this story. In my piece, I wrote this will be the highest grossing solo tour for Jay-Z ever based on record sales for VIP, Platinum and front row seats. This is undisputed.
As for the explanation about how pricing and yield management affect the availability of tickets for a show that is in the round (with 30% more inventory than last tour) it takes more than StubHub seat maps to get the full picture.
Afterall, those StubHub tickets had already been sold by TM, and Jay and LN are getting the same amount of money during the primary sale whether or not the ticket sells for $6 or $106 on StubHub.
The way we report on ticket sales is going to drastically change in the next 12 months. I think Paul Resnikoff and DMN would be better served doing some actual, interview-driven reporting on the topic and not just rely on screen shots from StubHub (because that’s kind of lazy).
Wow the Billboard writer actually believes the bullshit he’s writing and then attacks DMN. Just admit you got paid to write that crap piece claiming $6 tickets is a great thing
DMN sees rain coming from sky. Says its raining. Billboard call them lazy because they didn’t interview a meteorologist.
More like DMN keeps saying rain is falling from the sky. Then he points out that something is falling out of the sky, but it’s actually hail.
I knew Billboard (AKA ‘The Bible’) and HITS don’t like each other but I’m suprised that Billboard and DMN hate each other also!
Paul – do you like HDD? I’m just askin’
This dude has been hating on Jay z for the longest. He probaly wakes on Jay z’s dick, have some breakfast first !!!
The same guy that said that Tidal woud be dissolved within 2 years. Hey
man, what did Jay-Z do to you?
One thing for DMN’s traffic has been going down as of late. Even hotnewhiphop has a better traffic ranking. We will see if more dates will be cancelled, lmao what an idiot. the shows certainly don’t look empty.
Jay-Z: your P.R. machine SUCKS. Your tour is crap stop trying to spin the media no one believes it, social media rules and they know you’re tour is shit.
social media is saying the opposite though. On which platform are you ? The concerts are packed! Check twitter and IG. Stop lying to the people. Anyways, we will see when the grossing numbers come in.