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1. Make Strategic Decisions Based on Your Ticket Sales
This seems obvious, but you'd be shocked how hard it is for many to know what their ticket sales are. But even as live music has become the critical money-maker in the industry, many are still going blind with their strategies because they don't actually know how many tickets they have sold.
So while T-Pain's announcement seems like a bummer, and it is a bummer, it's still better to recognise when what you're doing is not working and cancel to save not only continued loss but also, as he explains, fan frustration and disappointment.
PROMOGOGO as a product is literally for anyone whose job it is to sell tickets so they can make strategic decisions, often with marketing but also on an operational level (like cancelling or adding more shows), based on how many tickets they have sold. And we have to applaud when people make the decision based on what the data is telling them, even if it's not what they would have wanted.
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2. "I thought we were on a roll"
A moment in his message when he said "I thought we could roll off of the momentum from the last tour" gave me chills and I'll tell you why.
This is probably the most common trap people with any kind of following fall into. They look at how many followers they have, or how well the last tour did, or how many people listen on Spotify, or how many views their viral video got or whatever and just think "I got this". And maybe at some point, they did.
But the reality of the situation is the competition for our attention and our wallets is getting increasingly fiercer. Algorithmic social media feeds mean that many of the million followers might not ever even see the tour announcement, and with increased ticket prices, people may think twice before getting tickets.
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3. There's No Shortcut to Momentum
But just because the competition is getting stiffer doesn't mean nothing can be done. The key point T-Pain completely acknowledges, knows and makes crystal clear is that they needed more time to plan the tour, to be more organised, and he himself as the boss needed to be more hands-on.
He says that they didn't give themselves enough time to book the tour, and therefore the momentum fell flat. It's weird how ticket sales are so truly momentum-based, but that's how it is. For the tour to work, there are a thousand little steps that all need to be taken – many tedious and boring, like sending out the email blasts, setting up the local ads, reaching out to the hard-cores, replying to fans on social, and many more. Any one step doesn't seem so significant, but as soon as you start cutting corners, the whole thing collapses.
Those are literally the words T-Pain uses. He said the didn't have enough time, they needed better systems in place, they didn't set up the ticket sales right, and that they were cutting corners. All of those are understandable, especially paired with point number two where you overestimate how much momentum you've already built.
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4. Selling Tickets Is Hard
At the end of the day, selling tickets is hard. It doesn't happen naturally. T-Pain acknowledges how much the audience and the fans are giving off themselves to attend these big shows not just financially but how they dress up and get hyped and bring their energy to the arenas.
They do it because they want to and it's fun, but the marketing and ticket sales process should acknowledge what they're bringing to the table not just financially but that they are choosing to spend an evening with your music and not doing anything else. Not watching Netflix, not scrolling on Insta, not going to the pub.
It doesn't need to be explicit, but putting effort into the marketing really translates – and giving people time to get excited makes a big difference. While operationally there needs to be more time to execute the production properly – sure; but low ticket sales are almost always because people either don't know about the tour, or they're not compelled enough to go. And that's down to marketing, building momentum, and reaching the audience that will attend.
American rapper T-Pain just cancelled his tour in a candid announcement on Instagram. The reason was why most tours get cancelled, but no one ever admits, and that is low ticket sales.
The reason we wanted to include this message on our blog is because T-Pain is talking about something that is common but almost no one wants to admit, especially not publicly, because people get embarrassed. But we don't think anyone should be embarrassed, selling tickets is hard.
T-Pain is an artist with a 15-year long career that includes two Grammys, he has a Billboard number one album as well as numerous hit singles. His last tour sold out and so, as he explains, he genuinely thought they could just 'ride out that momentum' to sell out this tour.
And we know if someone with his success needs 'better systems in place' to sell out his tour, there are others in the same situation. Here is T-Pains Instagram video, transcribed below in full (including his explicit language) although mildly edited for clarity. We'll break down further what he says below with further explanations and recommendations.
Got some new about the 1UP DLC tour.
My team set up the tour in September and if you've ever set up a whole monthlong tour before that's not enough time to set up a full tour. Some corners got cut, production went missing. And you know, I wasn't as hands-on with the planning and things as I should have been because I've been busy as hell. I just thought since the first 1UP tour sold out every city this should be good.
Having said that, I'm gonna take it upon myself to cancel the 1UP DLC tour. Because it would have been a bad look for me and it wouldn't have been entertaining for y'all. So I'd rather just leave it for a later time.
Now let me tell you I was advised to lie about this and say I needed some alone time or me time, just don't make it look like we fucked up. We fucked up. We fucked up, I'mma keep it real with y'all. Most artists lie. Whenever concerts get cancelled or tours get cancelled if's for low ticket sales. It ain't really for whatever the fuck reason they say. And I think that's wrong. And that's fucked up.
Y'all are spending you're hard-earned money on these fucking tickets, and y'all take time to fucking prepare for this shit. It can be someone's birthday, you can gift it to somebody some fucking tickets and shit.
So I just want to take it upon myself that this is my decision to do this. I should have been more hands-on with the planning of it. We didn't have enough time, we should have known that when we started planning. We should have planned the tour later. We should have planned this a bit better.
I appreciate the love, I appreciate the ticket sales we did sell although the ticket sales were very low and they were low because we didn't set it up right, we didn't set up how you buy tickets right. We was rolling of a momentum from the last tour so we figured everything would be a breeze. And it was not.
I just took it upon myself to make that decision to just let it go. Something I always go by, you can't hold on to a mistake just cos you spent a long time making it. And that's just the damn truth. If there's anything in your life that's not going right or is not for you, you can keep going to a point, but if it's affecting other people's lives you gotta let it go man. You gotta let it go.
So ultimately it's "postponed", but for right now the 1UP DLC tour is cancelled. More than likely I'm just gonna keep dropping this music man. We'll have better leeway, we'll have better systems in place and better planning for the next tour.
I appreciate the support. Thank you all for helping me for this long.
That's all I can think of, of the matter.
Thank you again.
T-Pain
Important Take-Aways
While the situation for T-Pain's 1UP DLC tour sucks for him and his team and his fans, we applaud his candour and honesty. He is far from being the only artist underestimating how hard it is to sell tickets or overestimating any kind of momentum that's happening within the fans and the followers.
There are literally maybe four artists in the world for whom the announcement of a tour makes the mainstream media cycle, creating enough hype to sell out shows right away. And I don't think those are reading this blogpost. For every other person, selling tickets is hard. It takes strategy. It takes good marketing. It takes planning and good systems and smart people and the right tools.
We're sure T-Pain's next tour will be great, we are thankful that he chose to share his situation publicly to acknowledge just how hard it can be for everyone to keep attracting the crowds.
