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Should Wilco Start Playing Larger Venues?


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With the difficulty getting Tix to Wilco shows growing should they start to play bigger venues?. I got lucky to get into the Ryman on Sunday but wanted both nights since I am driving 600 miles (not complaining) other dates have sold out equally as fast. I know they would lose some of the intimacy by going to larger venues but unless you hover over your keyboard at the minute tickets go on sale you are out of luck....curious of other opinions.

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With the difficulty getting Tix to Wilco shows growing should they start to play bigger venues?. I got lucky to get into the Ryman on Sunday but wanted both nights since I am driving 600 miles (not complaining) other dates have sold out equally as fast. I know they would lose some of the intimacy by going to larger venues but unless you hover over your keyboard at the minute tickets go on sale you are out of luck....curious of other opinions.

 

I don't think they need to play larger venues, but they do need to do something about tickets.

These venues they are playing are very small, like 2,000-3,000 seats, and wilco could probably sell them out with only die hard fans.

 

So I say, forget presale and all that, but have something where you sign up with wilco's website and join a "fan club" (free or small lifetime fee) and then you get access to tickets for a whole week prior to public sale. Having something like that might eliminate much of the scalping and give us big fans more of a chance to get tickets.

 

They might be removed, but there are 415 stubhub wilco tickets for chicago, and that is a very significant portion of scalpers that got tickets while us fans got shut out.

 

I'm not sure the solution, but having about a quarter of the seats going to scalpers in unacceptable. Maybe make ALL tickets will call and the cardholder needs to be present? Tom Waits did it and I think it worked ok

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I'd rather fight like hell to get tickets to a smaller venue than have an easier time getting tickets to a larger venue.

I saw them at Radio City (capacity 6000) several years ago and while it was kind of exciting that they were growing to the point that they could sell out 2 nights there, it was just too big, they seemed so far away and it lacked a good bit of intimacy for me. My favorite show was at a 700 person capacity club in Poughkeepsie, NY (the same year as the Radio City shows) and I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the size of the venue.

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So I say, forget presale and all that, but have something where you sign up with wilco's website and join a "fan club" (free or small lifetime fee) and then you get access to tickets for a whole week prior to public sale.

This is exactly what they do though. No venue is gonna let the band's presale put all the tickets up for sale, and it's a marvel that Wilco is able to do presales at all. If they could get more than 10% of the seats for their presales I'm sure they would. But it's not up to the band. Wilco does more than most bands, but they can only go so far.

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I don't think they need to play larger venues, but they do need to do something about tickets.

These venues they are playing are very small, like 2,000-3,000 seats, and wilco could probably sell them out with only die hard fans.

 

So I say, forget presale and all that, but have something where you sign up with wilco's website and join a "fan club" (free or small lifetime fee) and then you get access to tickets for a whole week prior to public sale. Having something like that might eliminate much of the scalping and give us big fans more of a chance to get tickets.

 

They might be removed, but there are 415 stubhub wilco tickets for chicago, and that is a very significant portion of scalpers that got tickets while us fans got shut out.

 

I'm not sure the solution, but having about a quarter of the seats going to scalpers in unacceptable. Maybe make ALL tickets will call and the cardholder needs to be present? Tom Waits did it and I think it worked ok

 

Perhaps, but scalpers would probably be willing to pay the nominal fee to gain first access to tickets that they can still turn around and sell at a ridiculously marked-up price. The will call option might eliminate more of those folks, but I'm not sure there's ever going to be a solution that puts 100% of tickets in the hands of fans.

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The Civic Opera House only holds 1600 people? It seems like an interesting venue for a rock show, but if that's capacity it's definitely a problem in their HOME CITY, where they could probably get 10K to show up.

 

I'm sure a second show will be added anyway.

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The Civic Opera House only holds 1600 people? It seems like an interesting venue for a rock show, but if that's capacity it's definitely a problem in their HOME CITY, where they could probably get 10K to show up.

 

I'm sure a second show will be added anyway.

 

Capacity is 3,563. If everyone goes for 2 tickets at once 1781 people get lucky. If everyone goes for the max of 4 only 891 people get lucky.

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good input ...I hate bigger venues and other than seeing Neil Young at the Palace (Detroit) in 1991 I dont go to them. The issue of scalpers is huge and I dont know of a perfect solution ... Wish they would keep the venues small but that the band do multiple dates in locales that they know they will do well in more often ... they could have easily done 3 shows at the Ryman ... course then I would complain that I didnt get tickets to all 3 ;)

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Capacity is 3,563. If everyone goes for 2 tickets at once 1781 people get lucky. If everyone goes for the max of 4 only 891 people get lucky.

 

That's got to be smaller than UIC and the Auditorium. I know there were more than that at Millennium Park. I don't know about the Vic. Oh well. I'm sure a second show will be added.

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They did do large venues in 2009. Caught both shows at UIC, and the second one had some empty seats. I am cool with the two ticket concept, and adhered to it. AS I said on other threads, though, I was counting on this two per thing benefitting wilco fans, not scalpers. Went on stubhub and and am disgusted by the four in a row packages, 8 in one box offers, etc. These arent the fans I was hoping would benefit. These are money grubbing swine. I really needed three so I could take both daughters, but like most on this board realize that if we spread the love by buying two more of us can go. In the end, however, a lot of people will be stuck paying ridiculous costs to swine with captcha breaking software. I don't want to sound lik I am bitching, because even though I am I truly appreciate the time and effort Wilco put in to trying to stop this. There is only so much they can do, and I believe they did even more than they should. It just sucks that someone who never heard of wilco is going to pocket 200 a ticket for the 40 or 50 tickets they were able to snake. FU Eric Soderholm. JAckass.

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No Way, I have no interest in seeing Wilco in either a Hockey Rink or Stadium. How about multiple nights at small places, Wilco is an intimate act that needs to be seen as well as heard.I think I would move on(maybe to the Nationals like Paul) if they started playing large venues.

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I'd rather fight like hell to get tickets to a smaller venue than have an easier time getting tickets to a larger venue.

I saw them at Radio City (capacity 6000) several years ago and while it was kind of exciting that they were growing to the point that they could sell out 2 nights there, it was just too big, they seemed so far away and it lacked a good bit of intimacy for me. My favorite show was at a 700 person capacity club in Poughkeepsie, NY (the same year as the Radio City shows) and I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the size of the venue.

I was at that show at The Chance, too, and it was definitely a fave. I love when they play the "tertiary markets" as Jeff said that night. (Also saw one of the Radio City shows and agree - we were way up in the balcony. The only thing I really remember about that show was during Hell is Chrome, after "he was not red" some asshat yelled out "WHAT COLOR WAS HE?" and I continue to fear that happening whenever they play it...).

 

But we also saw them at Madison Square Garden on New Year's Eve and they rocked that place just fine. One of the best nights of my life. Just magical. Granted we were 8th row on the floor and it was a special occasion, but they worked the room. However, I would certainly not go out of my way to see them play places like that. And I can't really see that happening, I hope...

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Tom Petty did 20 (twenty!!!) nights at the Fillmore in SF in 1997 and it was, of course, awesome to see him in that size of a place. Larger venues? No thanks! More shows in smaller venues. More residencies/multi-night runs would be excellent. Bravo to Wilco for still playing special, historic and smaller venues like the Ryman and Cain's.

 

Getting tickets can be hard work, but that's life for a rock fan. Wilco do a great job of trying to get the tix to the fans. Pearl Jam (and I've heard, Dave Matthews, too) does it probably better than any one with their fanclub tickets, but Wilco still does it well. By the way, Dark, I have two singles for the Sat Ryman show for sale if that would help you out. See my post in the Got Extras thread.

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I would prefer two or three show run at the smaller venues in places where tickets are in more demand and harder to get. Not sure how that works out from a business perspective for the band.

 

 

it lengthens their tour 2-3x...so i doubt it'll happen. sure, there've been residencies by bands before, but not extensive tours built around multi-date stops at each city. just booking it would be a nightmare in terms of avoiding conflicts w/ other band tours.

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pearl jam's is a lottery. you order tix through tm w/ a personal code, but you don't know where your seats are until you pick them up the day of the show. it seems to work pretty well.

 

wilco should do larger fan presales through TM, rather than frontgate, since the latter is terrible and seems to provide no benefit.

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