With tickets to his legendary show going on sale this week, Roger Waters zoomed to the top of TicketNews’ exclusive events rankings for the week ending Sunday, November 13. Waters brings a new and improved production of “The Wall” to North American audiences in spring of 2012, and fans clearly could not be happier.
The show, based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album written mostly by band bassist Waters, is a semi-autobiographical piece exploring Water’s life after the loss of his father and other traumas. Beyond the original band tour in 1980 and subsequent film version in 1982, Waters performed it in 1990 for a one-time only show at the crumbled Berlin Wall. The musician took a revamped version worldwide in 2010 and 2011, with new special effects added for the large North American stadiums he will play next year. The tour begins in Houston, TX, on May 1 and ends in Philadelphia, PA, July 14.
Concerts in general performed well this week, with Radiohead getting to number four behind sales for their first U.S. tour in four years. The band launches the 2012 tour in Miami, FL on February 27 and wraps it up March 15 in Glendale, AZ. Country icon George Strait’s 2012 tour with Martina McBride also did well, hitting at number ten. And the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) could not be left behind at this time of year, finishing the week at number five on strong ticket sales for their popular holiday concert tours.
Theater also made a strong showing this week with perennial fan favorite “Wicked” the top ranking show at number two. Its main Broadway rival, “The Book of Mormon,” made a rare appearance in the bottom half of the rankings, in at number six and falling to number two in the week’s Broadway rankings.
It was the Radio City Christmas Spectacular that helped to displace “The Book of Mormon” this week, taking number three in the events rankings and moving into the top spot in this week’s Broadway rankings. The show, which plays each holiday season in New York’s Radio City Music Hall, also has a traveling company taking the production to select U.S. spots. This year, the show will play in Boston, MA, Durham, NC, and Nashville, TN.
With its world premiere in Montreal last month, Cirque Du Soleil’s “Michael Jackson: The Immortal” is clearly picking up steam, as shown by its number eight debut in the events top ten this week. Playing primarily Canadian dates through early November, the tour now sees only U.S. venues until a brief return to Canada in March with dates in Montreal and Quebec. U.S. stops include a nearly one month stand at Las Vegas’Mandalay Bay Events Center in December. The tour currently is scheduled to wrap in Salt Lake City, UT, in August of 2012.
TicketNews Exclusive Rankings and Power Scores are based on ticket sales from the TicketNetwork Exchange™. Two factors are used to calculate a power score: total ticket sales from the given event and total ticket sales within the category. Since the sum of all events’ power scores equals 100 in any given category, an individual event’s Power Score represents its category-specific significance. Top Event Power Scores should only be used to compare events within a particular category, and not across categories.
