American Idols Live faces dismal ticket sales, cancellations

Anyone who has access to any form of popular media has probably heard that season 9 of American Idol, which ended in May with Toledo's own Crystal Bowersox NOT being crowned the winner (sorry, I'm still bitter), was the weakest season of the show. While contestants may have had talent, by and large, they lacked the charisma and panache of seasons past. It also didn't help that Paula Abdul left the show and Simon Cowell had mentally checked out of his judging duties (who remembers his excellent rant about Tim Urban still being voted in week after week regardless of his critiques?).

Conventional wisdom would say that because this season had so little fanfare, polarizing fandoms and captivating performers, ticket sales for the summer tradition that is the American Idols Live! tour would be weak. That didn't stop the planners of this tour to book an exceptionally large amount of dates, many in massive venues. That didn't turn out so well.

Tuesday, rumors of cancellations and date and venue changes were confirmed by American Idol. Dates in Cleveland, Toronto, Omaha, Neb., Kansas City, Mo., Buffalo, N.Y., Portland, Maine and Winnipeg, Manitoba were canceled, and the dates of eight shows were changed. Instead of the tour ending in mid-September, it will end Aug. 31 in Indianapolis (conspiracy theorists note that this may be to avoid paying the salaries of the performers and crew for the month of September).

I understand that these venues are booked far in advance, but I can't help but wonder if they could have made some of these changes and arrangements (such as the Pittsburgh venue change to a smaller pavilion versus the massive Consol Energy Center) before they announced the dates. It was pretty clear early in the season that this season was a dud, and maybe they could have lessened the blow of this PR nightmare.

For example, in Cleveland, the tour normally went to the Wolstein Center, which seats up to 14,000 people. This venue is where I saw Clay Aiken and company the American Idols Live in 2003, and I thought it was a perfect sized venue. This year, the year where it was painfully obvious ticket sales would be bad? They decided to go to the larger Quicken Loans Arena, where the Cavaliers play. No wonder the show was canceled.

In addition, I think the locations of the tour stops were planned poorly. For example, a new addition to the tour this year is in Toledo, at our new 8,000 seat Huntington Center. This addition was likely made to include a hometown show for Crystal, and it seemed as though it was going to accommodate northern Ohio fairly well (but even that date isn't selling well). However, there were still too many dates around this city, or at the very least, in too big of venues (as mentioned with Cleveland).

Toledoans could stay home, or go to Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit and Grand Rapids, all within about a 3 hour distance. That's just too many options. When Toledoans go to concerts, we can help fill big venues like the Wolstein Center in bigger cities. But when you have small market concerts with big ones too, it's just not feasible to expect bigger venues to sell out too, such as the Palace of Auburn Hills.

Simply put: the tour was too big and the talent too bland. Plus, in this economy, people just cannot justify paying even $20 (which are what some Idol tickets are selling for) for a favorite to sing 3 or 4 songs (this is why I'm not going to the Toledo show, since I'd only wish to see Crystal).

This is a bad year for American Idol, and this tour is making it worse. Couple that with Simon's departure next year, and I wonder if it means this could be the last Idol tour we ever see, because I wouldn't be surprised if next year would not only mark the end of the show, but wouldn't be able to support a tour. Next year's cast needs to be buzzworthy enough to make viewers pull out their credit cards.


For updated tour information, visit Idol's official site.