When an artist goes on tour, the perfect combination of venue capacity, show location, and ticket pricing must be arranged in order for the tour to be a success. The more popular the artist, the bigger the venue and the more expensive tickets can be. When an artist is less well-known, it is crucial for the booking agents and artist managers to come up with accurate predictions on how they think the artist’s show will sell. If they guess incorrectly and overestimate a band’s success, it can lead to unsold tickets and a bankrupt tour due to not having enough money from ticket sales to pay back the venue and other tour operations costs.
With all this being said, I have been following the tour schedule and current ticket sales for Niall Horan’s upcoming ‘Nice to Meet Ya’ Tour which is set to begin this April. This is Niall Horan’s third solo tour since the announce of One Direction’s hiatus in January of 2016. Although this tour will be short, only lasting two months in select cities in the U.S. and Canada, he is booked to play some of his biggest venues yet.
I have kept an eye on the ‘Nice to Meet Ya’ tour because as a fan of Niall Horan myself, I was surprised to hear that he had been booked to play venues with such large capacities so soon into his still-developing solo career. With only one album out and another in the works, I feel that booking Niall Horan’s tour dates at arenas holding 20,000 or more fans was too big of a jump from his previous ‘Flicker‘ tour taking place in 2018. This past tour was significantly longer than his upcoming tour and included more show dates in more cities. In addition, it was also booked at outdoor amphitheaters across the US that held 9,000 to 15,000 fans and had cheaper tickets.
Due to this abrupt change in venue style and capacity, Niall’s ticket prices have increased and the amount fans willing to pay the higher cost of tickets has gone down. By being booked to play larger venues, the price of tickets had to grow in order to make enough revenue to pay back the venue for hosting the show. This resulted in a significant number of tickets still on sale for the majority of his tour, despite the tour dates approaching fast.
With only about two months left to promote his show dates and to sell as many tickets as possible, it is going to take a lot of work from his marketing and management teams to make any progress on selling his unsold seats. This is a perfect example as to why accurately predicting an artist’s potential touring success is incredibly important when it comes to having a successful, budget-conscious string of shows.
Click here to see the dates and ticket numbers for Niall Horan’s ‘Nice to Meet Ya‘ Tour!
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