Ticket registration for the Glastonbury festival are down from 2007, and many believe it's due to the headlining act... Jay-Z. The event organizer Michael Eavis says the drop in sales are due to "middle range" headliners. Speaking from the perspective of a hip hop head I can't fathom Jay-Z being mid-range talent, but maybe things are different in the U.K. as Eavis suggested.
“We've gone for something middle range although Jay-Z is huge in America."
Jay-Z could sell out Madison Square Garden playing the flute, so it's quite possible that selecting a hip hop artist to headline a Rock festival overseas wasn't the best idea afterall.
He added, however, that organisers never expected the demand to be as high as last year when The Killers, Arctic Monkeys and The Who topped the bill.
"It's going to be absolutely brilliant. But it's not like a Radiohead or a Muse or a Coldplay or an Oasis is it?”
Gigwise
My Trusted MOGs
My Trusted MOGs
That was quite an event, but Reading has a slight reputation of racism. And Jay-Z has a lot more respect from people than 50 cent does. If it's to do with any aspect of Jay-Z performing, it'll be that the bulk of Jay-Z fans will not travel to an expensive field in somerset to see him. The people who like to stand in the mud are the middle class kids who love stuff like the maccabees. More than likely the drop in interest is to do with the ridiculous, arduous process of obtaining tickets. Half man half biscuit got it right by saying that people would like to go, but only when there's gun towers to keep the hippies away.... I give Eavis 5 years on this one.
My Trusted MOGs
The idea that I need to buy a tick in Feb for a gig in the summer and have my photo attached to the ticket, so that I can't give it or sell it to anyone else, should my plans change.....that wouldn't be a reason for slow sales, would it?
My Trusted MOGs
Blame the Kings Of Leon (a headliner) .... were they really throwing cans b/c their racist? or was the crowd trying to be drunk and gangsta throwing stuff at the stage?