Sony Scales Back PlayStation Gigs as Some Dates Are Cancelled or Moved

My guess is low sales. Almost always comes down to money.

the one in munic got move to 2026 as well

I'm attending one in couple weeks.I've just checked and my original seat has been cancelled and that section of the arena isn't open (was about half way back) and I've been moved to infront of stage near enough. Didn't even know i'd been moved ha

I’ve had a lot of concerts cancelled 8 months after buying the tickets. If the venue is undersold, they just pull the plug now.

You can tell it’s a hard market to be in when there has been news Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, and AC/DC have all had trouble selling tickets.

As i can see all May dates have either been removed completely or moved to 2026 only April dates are still going

@MrGawain It not a hard market for AC/DC, Springsteen, Rolling Stones, etc., to sell tickets, it's their unadulterated greed and people are finally waking up to the fact that paying three digit sums of money to watch multimillionaires who are four decades past their best-before dates shuffle across a stage isn't a great way to spend a day.

@MrGawain To be fair those 3 are a bit past their sell by dates no ?

I've seen no cancellation emails for the UK yet. I've worked a couple of shows that were cancelled and it definitely sounds like it's due to not meeting the agreed number of sales. They'd have to pay for the venue regardless and it adds up fast. They can cut down on the cost by cutting down on seat allocation, by that I mean literally cutting power in certain parts of the area and moving people closer to the stage. The OVO has a 12K+ seating capacity, heating/AC/electrics get cut down when they reallocate like that, I'm not too familiar with the venues that they did cancel but a couple of those cities used to offer tax incentives for visiting shows, that's also dried up.

The only time I didn't see sales not being the cause was a Rob Zombie tour, he cancelled to work on a second Halloween movie and the fans pretty much rioted. We all disbanded and went home, it sucked because it was the European dates that were affected and he rarely comes here. Most shows will start or end in London with Ireland being optional depending on venue availability, it's the most cost effective way to get back to the States.

Touring is rough at the moment all across the board. Bands are being forced back on the road because streaming is killing their passive income and most are having to work second jobs. When they do announce a date they aren't meeting the expected numbers, the tickets are too expensive. For the last Slash/Myles Kennedy show they comp'd me twelve tickets, I just gave them to people who were buying from scalpers. Even when tickets sell out they don't really sell out, there are always tickets on stand-by for private concierge services, shows aren't selling out even when they say they are.

(part 2)

They can't expect to fill venues when they are asking too much for the tickets. It's not as bad in the genre I work with (Metal) but everyone is feeling it and streaming is the number one culprit. People just aren't buying music like they once were, it's costing a hell of a lot more to just be on the road too. What I keep hearing through work is 'insurance', it's sky rocketed and it's needed especially if a show has pyro like Rammstein of Five Finger Death Punch. Then there's the electricity/gas prices for venues, they are paying a lot more to keep the venues going. The summer festivals like Download/Hellfest/Wacken aren't affected as much but interior venues like The London ovo Arena (Sony's London stop) are.

They need to cap prices but for the moment it's not happening. Iron Maiden are up to $2mil a booking now, that's just the band not the rest of the crew, venue staff, or the ticket vendor percentages. Even System of a Down who were notoriously anti-capitalistic have a $1mil booking fee for 2025. There are so many hidden costs that concert goers aren't seeing, air travel, food, accommodation for bands/crew/PR (up almost 20%) has all skyrocketed. I'm earning more from royalties now than I am from touring, it's almost not worth it. The moneys not there for the labels either and they have to manage whole rosters with barely there music sales.

It's an industry that genuinely could go extinct if the next generation lose interest in live shows. I can't count how many tour managers I've seen retire in the last couple of years, they all have families and it makes more sense working a 9 to 5 while being able to spend time with them than try to wheel and deal with a venue who who suddenly decides they want to charge more. It's a huge gamble that doesn't always pay off.

@MrPeanutbutterz some concert tickets these days are absolutely scandalous. I love music and have been going to see bands live since my first on back in 1994, but I find it hard to justify the cost these days. I tend to go watch folks playing in smaller venues. I will still attend the odd bigger gig, but there are many I just back out of simply because I refuse to pay the ticket price.

Music is for everyone. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to pay for tickets, I just choose not to as I don't like the way they are pricing folks out of going to see it live.

@B-I-G-DEVIL They might have moved you up front to cut back on power prices, it might sound ridiculous but the grids in those venues are often toggled between rows and sectors now. That way if they under sell they can move more people upfront and focus power/lighting on that area of the venue. They'll rope off a whole area for it and leave it unused.

Everyone ends up winning, they pay less to run the show and you get a better experience by being closer to the stage. It's happening a lot in Europe at the moment. I've seen some shows not even use the house lights, it all adds up. The venue isn't just charging for stage time, it's the time for set-up, for sound-tests. Most shows will start sound/light tests in the early afternoon and then continue throughout the day into the evening. That's a lot of electricity. They even started charging for wi-fi, it used to be part of the fee, now it's separate. It all ends up being tacked onto the price for the concert goer.

@Jrs1 Stone's Hackney Diamonds was number 1 in 20 countries in 23. There were rumours about a 2025 tour, but it was never actually announced and reportedly never really got through the early planning stage.

Their 24 tour grossed $235m/£185m, making it the six biggest tour of the year.

There is definitely a market for a tour for all of those artists, but costs are up across the board and people have less money to spend.

With this economy where everything became a lotttt more expensives than before (thanks to some countries), i don't think many people have the luxury to spend their money for game concert.

@Weebleman Music is for everyone. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to pay for tickets, I just choose not to as I don't like the way they are pricing folks out of going to see it live.

That's why I'm looking to leave that job. I see it everyday and the energy has completely shifted. It's a great hobby but a lot of people are losing out on seeing bands live because they can't afford it. They are talking about more increases too. For major venues it's currently at £25 VAT, £10 to the promoter, £5 for performance royalties £90'ish to the artist. Gear and tech and lighting are up 20% this year and that's even if they can get it.

Lots of shows are having to pay more for gear because there is a shortage or it's overbooked. Bars made up a lot of the damage before but they too are struggling, when younger people do show up they aren't drinking as much. Even freight is up by 300% in some places making it a mini nightmare to get gear and equipment on the road.

Some bands just want to be on the road to perform, it's not entirely about the money, production costs are a huge part of why fans are getting priced out. Oh yeah and they doubled most of the accommodation costs last year meaning crews are stretched thin/overworked and treating people like that has a shelf life. Many of those reasons could be why the Sony Tour has cancelled specific dates, it could just come down to the logistics, they can save more by skipping a location than trying to deal with the production costs and risk under selling.

I got into it because I love music, it's always been there for me and every fan I've ever met at any show were always there for the same reason. They're the ones who pay the bills and put roofs over peoples heads, and they are the ones getting ripped off by that same system. It absolutely sucks to see it and I have no idea how they could fix it other than artists price capping their fee because productions costs are (for the moment) set in stone.

The copied email mentions March 10th 2026, your text translates it to May 2026…

They announced and immediately cancelled a gig in Finland last year so this has been on shaky ground since the get go. I'd still like to attend so I'll have a look if any tickets are going cheaper now

@GirlVersusGame really appreciate the response and completley agree with everything you say. I myself was in the music business a while back and the flow of money was very different. The shift to streaming means that unless youre hitting millions of streams, most of an artists revenue is from touring/merch these days. As you highlighted so well, the cost of touring has gone through the roof. Catch 22.

Add folks like ticketmaster into the mix with the wonderful invention of dynamic pricing, and greed kills the hope of seeing your favourite band for many kids.

I miss the days of going to buy tickets. Or hitting redial on the phone and hoping it gets a dial tone. It sounds old fashioned but at least it was fair and there was no 'wait in the lobby' so it creates a false demand and pushes prices up.

Sadly I don't see it changing for the better.

I had tickets to the Gothenburg concert, but they cancelled it. They said they'd rearrange it for a later date, but haven't had any news on that yet.

My initial thought was it could be low ticket sales, but then I remembered when I was purchasing my tickets, there weren't that many seats to pick from. Apart from a few dotted around the middle/front, most were just the ones right at the back.

I don't expect them to reorganise the concert here anyway, unfortunately.

@Weebleman Agree completely. I do similar - I try to hit up smaller bands when they're in town (well, Dublin). Saw Revocation (with Alluvial, Goatwh*re, Creeping Death) in 2023 in a venue that let me stand and watch my favourite guitarist of his generation play six inches from my face.

Cost of entry? €25. I'm no business wizard, but I don't see four bands from the US making much money for themselves by charging €25 to see them after trekking all the way to Ireland. Too right I bought a long sleeve t-shirt off them for €40.

Then Pearl Jam were charging something like €150 to see them in 2024... what happened to fighting Ticketmaster, chaps? I'm good at those prices.

Plus as well it's not just the tickets - it's taking the day off (most international gigs in ireland seem to be mid-week), it's travelling to Dublin, it's either paying accommodation or hoping one of the boys is driving up and down the same day...

@MrPeanutbutterz I cover Dublin a lot, are you talking about the Lost Lane show? The best thing about Dublin are that most Metal bands play small rockbars or The Academy, they aren't huge venues. It's a much easier set-up and everyone is a lot more relaxed.

But like you said a lot of people have to travel up because the city itself has gotten so expensive and frankly filthy (in my opinion) I saw hardly any police when I was there last and there were junkies everywhere. The worst was the boardwalk, openly using and no one cared. I've never seen anywhere else in Europe change so quickly for the worse. It's alright when there are a few of us but most venues are on the North Side of the river and I'm frequently being told to keep an eye on my things. For the Dropkick Murphy's in Vicar's Street there were pickpockets in the crowd, they got dealt with but they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

It's great for cheap shows in The Pint and Fibbers (cheaper to book too) but getting the fans there is getting harder. Everyone seems to be traveling up these days. It's affecting sales too, promoters are taking less risks because it's hitting their wallets and Ticket Master can't tell the difference between Justin Timerlake and Kreator. I'm seeing more and more US bands end a tour in the UK now, it's just cheaper to get to London and cross the Atlantic. Even labels like Nuclear Blast are cutting some Ireland dates because they get through Europe easily but once they hit the UK they have to cross the water, which is costing even more. The only way around it is raising ticket prices. Are you going to go up for Vader this month?

@Weebleman I think the worst part is that it's stealing the ability to create great memories. Some of my best memories are from gigs, and some of the best people I've met through were through gigs. I've watched bands stand outside in the freezing cold and pouring rain signing vinyl for fans because they cared that those people came out and supported them, it humbles you and teaches you to just be a good person.

Metalheads are some of the most passionate and intelligent people at those shows, they get a bad rep' by people who don't listen to the music. From the outside it just looks like noise and people beating the crap out of each other in a mosh pit but it's not like that at all. It's just letting off energy instead of keeping it bottled up and pretending to function 'normally'.

I'd hate to live in a world where gatherings like that become a thing of the past. It was a lot more healthy for me to go to those shows, meet people, and let go than to sit inside listening through a pair of headphones while I stared at the wall. My family still think I ran away with the circus, I bounced from TV to Film (awful) to the kind of Music that they still think is only noise. I brought my Mum to a DragonForce/Alestorm (pirate Metal) show a couple of years ago, she left after twenty minutes. She did like The Darkness though, and Slash so I guess all hope is not lost. I've been trying to get my young nephew into Rock/Metal, it's a work in progress.

@GirlVersusGame my kids think my music taste is abysmal but every so often I catch them humming along to a song or tapping away with the beat so i know the seed is planted. I'm just letting it grow at its own pace. Force it and they will lose interest, but its slowly growing.

My middle kid discovered weezer recently and he is all in on the green album. I'm gonna try and get tickets when they next come round to see how he likes it. I'm hoping that bug bites and I can start bringing him to the smaller, more random gigs.

I'm like you though, my greatest memories are from gigs and festivals growing up. I used to love heading into Manchester of a weekend and hitting the box office in virgin megastore to pick some random gig tickets up. Many of my friends were made at places like the academy or the roadhouse and that just doesn't stand a chance today.

@MrPeanutbutterz I'm a big pearl jam fan and it was 160 quid a ticket to see them in the UK last time round. As much as I love them, I just can't bring myself to pay that. To top it off, I believe he was ill at the gig and struggled to sing most of the songs.

I'd rather catch someone in a small venue for 30 quid and feel like I've been to a gig than sit in the back row of a stadium for a small fortune.

Did you see the price of tickets for the sabbath shows at the Aston villa ground? My god.

@Weebleman Yeah the scale of these gigs isn't particularly appealing either. I saw Metallica live in 2004, but I didn't really "see" them. I watched them on a Jumbo Tron, while tiny little bean people bopped around a stage I was miles away from.

The pricing of the Sabbath shows are criminal. Plus Ozzy is only doing a few tracks (which is honestly a surprise in itself - if a Weekend At Bernie's-esque scenario happened it wouldn't surprise me at all).

@GirlVersusGame @GirlVersusGame You've some excellent comments in this thread. Nah it was on in Whelan's, which holds a few hundred at most. My face was less than a foot from Davidson's fretboard at times. Will take that a million times over the big gigs where I'm almost squinting to see what's happening on stage.

Agree about the venue sizes - I saw Suffocation in possibly Fibbers? I remember chatting to Hobbs and Marchais and they said they were absolutely buzzing to be in a venue of that size again as they had just done a bunch of festival dates in Europe, and the atmosphere is obviously very different for both performer and attendees.

I've long maintained that my three favourite things to do in Dublin are go around the record shops, head to a gig, and board a car/bus/train to get the hell out of it. The latter has certainly become much worse in the last few years.

I can see what you mean about bands not quite hitting the Emerald Isle - Blood Incantation were scheduled to play here a few years back, which was scuppered by the pandemic. Now, the closest they're getting is the Incineration Fest in London.

Never a big fan of Vader! I've De Profundis and Revelations in a crate somewhere in my attic, but twenty minutes of them had me swapping over to Slayer lol. I did have a ticket for the recent Crowbar/Napalm Death gig, but alas it was mid-week and I just couldn't make the time work.

Thanks I love Metal, it was an absolute life saver. Fibbers was a wild time, I don't know if they still have a kink club in the basement but when I was there they did so after the first three songs I used to go down there to mix things up. It was my first venue without a security barrier too, the stage was just right there. I caught a boot in the back of the head without anyone attached to it, two guys approached me with 'can you help my friend you have small fingers' he'd gotten his ear-plugs jammed in his ears and couldn't get them out. It just got wilder as the night went on.

I ended up in Howth the next day at party full of the elderly, Phil Lynnot's Mum was there (I didn't know her) she was sitting around with a bunch of old ladies while someone played the violin off to the side. It was all very fancy. She started chatting to me, I asked 'who's that guy in your necklace?' she asked if I did drugs, told me not to and said it's her son. I'd heard Thin Lizzy's music (Metallica covered Whiskey in the Jar) and had walked past the statue of him outside Bruxelles but the words were out of my mouth before I knew it. For the next hour I was given a talk on the dangers of drugs, I didn't even do them but she was determined to make sure I knew the risks. She told me she used to visit her son's graveside and give it a little kick for breaking all his fans hearts, I never forgot her words. Apparently he passed alone just after Christmas due to an overdose, I believe she's over there now herself, probably giving him a real kick in the bum.

I still don't know if the whole room went silent or if I was in some kind of shock where it felt like it did. I think I asked was it Jesus (it kind of looked like him) I saw her again years later in the Olympia, they keep a box for her. And she remembered me, I had to tell everyone how we met and I never lived it down. There were actual tears of laughter when I got to the Jesus part. That Olympia show was nuts too, Charlie Sheen joined the tour and was hanging over the balcony off his head, they had to keep stopping the show to tell him to chill. There's something about Ireland, the rest of Europe just never compares to what goes on there during and after shows.

(part 2 because reasons)

I'll always prefer those smaller venues. You actually get to mingle with people and end up in some really weird but memorable situations. It's not like that in the UK anymore. Remember the Lamb of God incident where they charged Randy with manslaughter after a fan died due to being pushed off the stage (after he crashed it) right after that the UK venues tightened security. They didn't want stage diving or moshpits, they just wanted people to stand there. It didn't last that long but it made some shows absolutely sterile. Meanwhile you touchdown in Dublin and it was business as usual, then like you said leave once the shows over.

I've done some touristy things there but not much compared to other places, some idiot set fire to a tomb I wanted to visit not too long ago then I think there was a major riot a few months later. I got to see Cork too and more recently the cliffs that were used for The Princess Bride, I still want to see The Father Ted house. For TV (Ghost Adventures) I visited Loftus Hall, The Hellfire Club and Leap Castle but the host Zack Bagans is (words I can't use here) I haven't seen much of the North but I'd like too, when Sabbath played Belfast I was told it was too dangerous to go out exploring. I wanted to see the Peace Wall and some of the murals, instead I saw four walls and a roof.