by Adriana Hamacher

OP/ED: The news came all at once early this week: two of the summer’s biggest American tours have been put off, with U2 postponing 16 shows, because of Bono’s back injury, and Christina Aguilera rescheduling 20. Add to that Limp Bizkit cancelling the American leg of their summer comeback tour and the Eagles cutting back on their much heralded grand tour. Is it a fluke that these artists all “belong” to Live Nation Entertainment? Promoter Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster Entertainment earlier this year and its first summer season as a combined company is facing scrutiny from every angle. So, it’s hard to resist reading between the lines.

Poor old Bono. It’s certainly put the brakes on the band’s march to claiming the highest-grossing tour in history. Perhaps it was actually a physical impossibility? The eight-week minimum recovery/rehab time doctors say Bono needs has meant scrapping a 16-show run, although U2 are slated to get back on the bus for Turin, Italy, on Aug. 6.

More than 1 million tickets had been sold for the 16 shows, worth more than $100 million in box office revenue. Last year, 360 grossed more than $311 million and sold more than 3 million tickets, according to Billboard Boxscore. Year two would have taken the tour toward $600 million in box office, topping the $558 million generated by the Rolling Stones’ 2005-2007 Bigger Bang tour.

Arthur Fogel, CEO of global touring for Live Nation Entertainment, is sanguine about the postponement. Talking to Billboard on Tuesday, he says:

“I’m confident we can put back things to where there is not a severe financial impact. I think one thing that has been proven historically about U2 as a band is first and foremost they always want to put things back in place for their fans and fulfill the shows that they’re committed to. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

And considering the massive (but insured) costs of scrapping the most complex touring production ever launched, Live Nation appears not too concerned, if, that is, the tour continues as planned next year. But this is by no means a certainty according to Fogel:

“Suffice to say we’re working feverishly to come up with the best option and put it in place and give an update to ticket holders as soon as humanly possible,” he says. “It’s a disappointment for a lot of people, but the important thing is for Bono to have the time he needs to recover and then we go forward.”

And Fogel has, after all, done it before. U2’s 2005-2007 Vertigo tour had to postpone an Asia/Pacific leg for a time as a result of an illness in guitarist the Edge’s family. That tour went on to gross $389 million. And then there’s Live Nation’s sheer size — last year it sold 140 million U2 tickets to 21,000 shows around the world — that alone minimizes the damage that any one tour, no matter how big, could cause. So with the ticket money already in the bank, there’s not a lot left to say except to wish Bono a speedy recovery, everyone can do with a rest now and then.

But when it comes to Christina Aguilera’s postponement, the jury’s most certainly out. Aguilera, who in addition to having Live Nation as her promoter, is managed by Irving Azoff, the company’s executive chairman, blamed a busy schedule for putting off her tour, which was due to start on July 15 in Connecticut. Aguilera – who, it should be noted, is wearing the full-time hats of recording/touring artist, prepping for the release of her first album in nearly four years, budding film starlet finishing production and heading into the press gauntlet for her first major motion picture AND mom – accepted full responsibility for the switch:

“With both the album press and film press, I am booked the entire summer and need time to focus on the work at hand. After reviewing the schedule with my team, I realized there was not enough time to put together and rehearse for a proper show, one that is at the caliber you expect from me or at the level I would present to my fans,” she said on her website.

But those reading sales disasters into the tea leaves of some of Live Nation’s biggest tours, found the timing of her decision suspicious, among them Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar:

“Any time a tour gets postponed four days after it’s on sale, you have to wonder whether it’s because of less-than-spectacular sales,” he said.

And might we be forgiven for suggesting that ticket prices are a little out of control? Artists have some say in how much it costs to see them – but not the final say in most cases – so we might also want wish Christina bonne chance with her projects. But what about Limp Bizkit and all that nonsense about not liking big venues? Just a week after Snoop Dogg dropped out of the summer collaboration and was replaced by Ice Cube, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst tweeted:

“Basically, Limp is not an ampitheatre [sic] band. We like to see less seats in front of the stage and more floor filled w fans going bananas. It’s just more fun for all of us that way. Some bands are meant to be seen mainly sitting down, but definitely NOT Limp Bizkit. We want to give you the best experience possible so we will reroute to the venues we feel will work the best. High energy , good times. We want you to have the best.”

All very well and good, but couldn’t they have decided that before the tickets went on sale? The cancellation of the Limp Bizkit tour was not a surprise in many circles as there were rumors that ticket sales were poor. But there are many who are quite rightly pissed off, including Twitter user krooklynkracker, he/she tweeted:

“You guys cancel shows and we who ordered our tickets in advance suffer. Live Nation stuck me for damn near $30 dollars.”

The band is still good for festival dates and non-U.S. engagements, they’re due to appear at Pukkelpop in Belgium in the summer and take heart, krooklynkracker, new U.S. dates are being put together for a tour in the autumn and you can certainly trust Live Nation, to invest your $30 wisely in the interim, put it into dynamic pricing and other such cost effective strategies but… hang on… isn’t that what they were meant to be doing with the Eagles???

Ticket sales for the Eagles, Irving Azoff’s most famous clients, have also been the subject of speculation. Although the band has historically been one of the industry’s biggest earners, it's cancelled some dates on its stadium tour this summer and rescheduled others, with very little explanation.

There are some answers on Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmidt's website where it transpires that he had to have minor intestinal surgery earlier this month:

“This is what happened,” he wrote. “A doctor visit to the hotel ... a visit to the Emergency Room at the Hospital ... tests, cat scans, all that fun stuff ... checking in as a patient in the hospital ... two days of observation, poking, probing, and another cat scan. By Friday, after missing the Seattle show, and now the third Vancouver gig, one choice remained ... surgery.”

On the mend, Schmidt and the Eagles hit the stage in Denver on May 20 and have promised to make up the shows they were forced to miss. But although surgery may explain the May cancellations, it doesn't quite explain why the June dates were scrubbed. There’s been no comment from Azoff.

Will there be further disruption? Rolling Stone recently reported that Tom Petty, Lilith, Rihanna and other Live Nation tours have been suffering from weak early sales. Ones to watch: if they’re not subject to suspicious cancellation, there are bound to be some tasty bargains around on the secondary ticket market this summer.

U2 Tickets