GossipMan

Britney not quite red hot here

Thursday, June 27, 2002

By Scott McLennan
Telegram & Gazette Entertainment Columnist

Like, ohmygod, you can still get tickets for Sunday's Britney Spears
concert at the Worcester Centrum Centre!
Has young America -- at least around here -- lost its interest in
the 20-year-old contender for the title “Queen of Pop?”
Most likely not. The fact that neither Spears' Centrum show nor
the one she is doing Saturday at the FleetCenter in Boston sold out
is most likely the result of the singer already having played the area
in December. Diehard fans caught her then, and Spears is now up
against more competition from the summer concert circuit. That
seems to be the simple explanation for unsold concert seats.
“I think 'N Sync and Backstreet Boys are on the downslide, but
not Britney. She has not peaked yet,” said Gary Bongiovanni,
editor-in-chief of Pollstar magazine, a concert-industry magazine.
This week Pollstar reported that Spears is averaging $945,965 in
gross revenue from ticket sales per show thus far on the second leg
of her “Dream Within a Dream” concert tour. The tour has already
played 13 cities in North America where, on average, 16,109 tickets
are sold per show, according to Pollstar's box office analysis.
Spears' numbers rank her as the third most lucrative concert tour
right now. She trails behind Paul McCartney and the supposedly
slipping 'N Sync.
“If she already played the market, it might be tougher to tell
mom and dad you need the money for more tickets,” Bongiovanni
said, convinced that kids and young teens still make up the
backbone of Spears' fan base.
But that, too, may be a claim up for debate.
Peter Falconi, operations manager for Citadel Communications
in Worcester, said that Spears is a core artist on WXLO-FM
(104.5), Citadel's pop and Top 40 outlet in the city. WXLO's target
audience is women over the age of 25.
“Her stuff hit two years ago and remains popular. The show
here is a hot item. It's telling by the number of people calling looking
for tickets,” he said. Those looking for a freebie should note that
'XLO is staging a “Britney-oke” contest tomorrow morning at
Spag's in Shrewsbury. The best Britney lip-syncer wins tickets to
the Centrum show. The contest is restricted to adult performers.
Adults? Will they know the songs?
Yup, Falconi said that he senses as many grown-ups as school
kids are into Britney.
“She's crossed over from teenybopper act to pop icon,” Falconi
said, basing his judgment on the premise that those hounding him for
tickets are saying they want to go to the show with their kids versus
they want to take the kids to the show.
“She's not the next Madonna, but she has broken out of the pack
of young blond divas. Look at Christina Aguilera. She did her thing
and went away.”
Netting an older audience is key if Spears wants any kind of
longevity, noted Pollstar's Bongiovanni.
And the artist herself seemed bent on crossing over with her
latest album, the simply titled “Britney.” Songs such as “I'm a Slave
4 U” and “I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” clearly are searching
out listeners with more than bubble gum tastes.
“Britney” has thus far sold 4 million copies since its November
release, a dip from the 9 million copies her sophomore release
“Oops ... I Did It Again” sold in the United States. And her 1999
debut, “Baby One More Time,” is still Spears' biggest seller with 13
million copies sold.
But it's not just records that keep the former Mousketeer in the
limelight. She has a cameo in the upcoming Austin Powers movie
(which will hopefully be more memorable than the short-lived
“Crossroads,” the full-length film Britney starred in early this year).
And she is ubiquitous as a soda pop pitch woman.
News of the breakup between Britney and 'N Syncer Justin
Timberlake has been well documented in any and every outlet
dedicated to fluff news. And the singer now stars in a new video
game that challenges the player to create dance moves for a
character in hopes of out-hoofing a computer-generated Spears.
All that work certainly seems to be paying off. Rolling Stone
magazine recently listed Spears as the 17th most profitable music
artist of last year. The magazine tabulated income from touring,
recording, publishing and endorsements. In Spears' case she netted
$20 million (U2 topped the list with a net of close to $62 million).
So while the folks at the Centrum may be scratching their heads
as to why there may be some empty seats at what is reportedly
going to be a spectacle of a show involving elaborate staging,
multiple costume changes and a cast of dozens, the artist herself
has little to sweat about at this stage of her plans for world
domination.
Spears' concert on Sunday begins at 7:30 p.m. and features
opening acts LMNT (products of one of those “making of the band”
TV shows) and 3rd Faze.