PRNewsfoto/Live Nation Entertainment Madonna‘s longtime tour promoter is incensed over a recent story in the New York Post claiming that tickets for her upcoming Madame X tour aren’t selling well. He claims the article is based on lack of knowledge and bias.
Speaking to Pollstar, promoter Arthur Fogel says the Post article is “absolute lies,” adding, “There’s something really amiss there. If you go back in history, each of her last four tours, [the Post] has gone on full attack mode on Madonna.”
In the article, the Post claimed, among other things, that “hundreds of seats were still available for each gig.” But as Fogel explains, that’s how Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan Program program works.
Fogel points out, “With Verified Fan, you register [for tickets]…the point is to try and protect as many fans as possible from scalpers getting tickets if you just put them on sale.”
He continued, “So, we get all these registrants and at the end of registration period, you do a cleanse because you have algorithms to get rid of duplicate credit cards, people trying to scam blocks of tickets and all that sort of stuff. After all the registrants were satisfied with tickets, we had a few thousand tickets left, so we put them on sale.”
Similar accusations were made about Taylor Swift‘s tour, which used the same program, and that tour ended up breaking box-office records.
As further proof of strong ticket sales, Fogel tells Pollstar, “I started with seven…shows and then I announced another five, so I’m at 12. Then, I announced another five and I’m at 17. Now, is there some business model that says you add shows when you’re failing? Because if there is, I’ve never seen it.”
The tour kicks off in Brooklyn, New York, on September 12.
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