Is Katy Perry Really Facing Dreadful Ticket Sales?
2017 has not been a good year for Katy Perry. She went from being one of the top stars in the music industry to one of the most humiliated. However, people bashing Katy Perry fail to point out that unlike many other pop stars, she at least had a hit song. “Chained To The Rhythm” peaked at No. 4 on Billboard‘s Hot 100. At the time of its release, Billboard said that Perry had embraced her “wokeness.”
“Katy Perry is now a political pop star! That’s what ‘Chained To The Rhythm’ — her highly anticipated new single released on Friday (Feb. 10), to be performed at the 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night — aims to declare with undisguised pride.”
What came afterwards has hurt Perry’s reputation. Her singles “Bon Appétit” and “Swish Swish” both flopped. When Perry released her album Witness in June, it debuted at No. 1, but immediately fell down the charts. Several media outlets declared Perry as “desperate.” Stereogum wrote an article on how painful it has been to watch Perry struggle for relevance this year.
“But in the absence of the monumental jams we’ve come to expect from her, all her overzealous attention-seeking and foot-in-mouth blunders look more like desperation,” claimed columnist Chris DeVille, adding that Perry had actually been on a slow decline since the release of her album Teenage Dream in 2010.
Perhaps Perry had a chance to revive herself with her hosting gig at the 2017 MTV VMAs. Not only did the show become the lowest rated in the history of MTV, but Perry was metaphorically crucified for her hosting duties. News.com.au described Perry’s hosting duties as a trainwreck, while Vanity Fair was nicer and just said that Perry’s chart-topping skills just couldn’t translate to her hosting duties. Perhaps Perry was hoping that her hosting job at the VMAs would help her ticket sales for the upcoming Witness World Tour. Twitter has been consistently bashing Perry for allegedly very poor ticket sales.
It’s true that Katy Perry has postponed her tour, and she has even cancelled dates in Charlotte, NC and one in Buffalo, NY. It’s also true that if you look on Ticketmaster for dates in cities such as Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Boston, and others, there are several hundred seats available. However, many of those seats available are from the secondary market, where the tickets were already purchased. Perry will receive money regardless of whether those tickets are sold or not. And at least most of the dates look 50 percent filled.
Right now, Perry is suffering from low ticket sales, but the situation isn’t as disastrous as many are claiming (and hoping for). The pop star will play to a lot of empty seats, but not so much that she’ll have to cancel the entire tour. However, if reviews for her first show in Philadelphia on September 18 are good, it’s possible Perry could sell a lot more tickets. Although hating Katy Perry is definitely a popular thing right now, she’ll be just fine — at least when it comes to her upcoming Witness Tour.
[Featured Image by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images]
