It’s a big year for the Material Girl — Madonna recently released a brand new album, “MDNA”, and is about to embark on world tour set to begin at the end of May. However, after the April 26 announcement from promoters Live Nation and Shuki Weiss stating that the tour would be delayed two days, critics were left wondering if Madonna’s big year is in jeopardy.
According to USA Today the promoters explained that the change of schedule was in response to “production delays.” As a result, the tour originally set to begin on May 29 in Tel Aviv, Israel, will be postponed until May 31. The delay does not affect any previous ticket sales as all tickets that were sold for the May 29 concert will be honored at the new May 31 date.
In a statement on World Entertainment News Network (WENN), the Material Girl describes the delay in her tour as a positive, saying it comes as a result of aiming to make it her “most sensational yet.” “I have to say that in more than 25 years of performing I have never worked so hard or been so scrupulous. Or freaked out more than I have at the minute,” Madonna explained.
However, the “production delays” fueled speculation from critics who believed that the delays were actually to the steep decrease in sales of the MDNA album and reports that ticket sales have “tapered off.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Madonna’s “MDNA” album officially suffered “the biggest sales drop in chart history” with an 86.7 percent sales decline in its second week. The album went from the top spot on the Billboard 200 its first week to eighth in the following week, and in its third week just 19,000 copies were sold dropping it to fifteenth place, according to Nielsen Soundscan.
A drop in sales was anticipated but no one believed it would end up suffering as much as it did. The main factor in the decline was the promotions that were offered during release week. Many of the 359,000 albums sold that first week were in conjunction with a promotion that included it at no additional cost to fans that purchased tickets to Madonna’s concert, as well as an Amazon deal providing both a physical and digital copy of the album for the low price of $5. The expiration of these promotions resulted in just 48,000 copies being sold week two.
In addition to the poor album sales, there has also been little “chart traction” for Madonna’s two latest singles “Give Me All Your Luvin” and “Girl Gone Wild”, according to Rolling Stone.
In a statement to The New York Post, Gary Bongiovanni president of Pollstar said “ticket sales have been good in North America, but the question about Europe is whether ticket prices are too high.”
According to Jim Holzman, CEO of Ace Ticket, there has been no change in the sale of MDNA tickets. “She still has an audience and there is still a demand for her,” said Holzman.
A visit to Madonna’s official website on May 4, showed while many of the VIP packages have sold out the public onsales are have only sold out at eight locations, four in Europe and four on the North American tour.
