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Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Ireland
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|  Britney - The new material girl? | |
Sex Sells. Just ask Britney Spears. Simulated fellatio, eye-popping, figure-hugging outfits and more lingerie than you'd find at an Ann Summers girlie party are the controversial trademarks of her Onyx Hotel Tour.
The tour, which ended its Irish leg last night, may have been the most sexually explicit ever performed by a mass-market pop star in this country. But the sex-obsessed stage show didn't hinder ticket sales: the 22-year-old played three concerts in Dublin and one in Belfast in under a week, shifting close to 65,000 tickets priced at between €47 and €50 each.
And, after playing two consecutive nights in Dublin's Point Theatre, she jetted out to Portugal to headline a festival in front of 75,000 people, before returning to complete her Irish leg of the tour at the RDS Arena last night.
The former child star from Louisiana generated ticket sales of more than €3m in Ireland alone and is thought to have negotiated a hefty slice of the profits from the company behind the Irish dates, Aiken Promotions. "It is typical for an artist of her magnitude to take 50 to 55pc of the gross profits," said one Dublin-based concert promoter. "That would be the typical cut demanded on every date of the tour."
The Onyx Hotel Tour - billed as "a vibrant, whimsical place where wondrous dreams are realised and the darkest of secrets are revealed" - kicked off in San Diego on March 2 and visited 47 venues in the US, Britain and the continent before touching down in Ireland.
In what's shaping up to be the biggest tour of 2004, Spears will embark on a second tranche of US dates, with 37 concerts pencilled in from June 22, and will run until mid August. An Asia Pacific tour will take place in September, bringing to over 100 her number of dates played this year.
Although her latest album debuted at number one in the US and has sold over 1.5m copies there, the figure is considered to be disappointing for an act of her stature.
The global downturn in CD sales has been responsible for forcing big names onto the road more regularly (with Spears' former boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, playing Dublin's Point twice in a six-month period last year), but Spears' pulling power has proved to be as strong as ever on this tour. With the exception of a handful of US concerts, all the dates sold out. Two concerts in the 8,500-capacity Point and one in Belfast's Odyssey Arena (which holds 10,000 people) sold out in hours.
An extra date at the RDS Arena failed to sell out, although promoter Peter Aiken estimated that 98pc of the 40,000 tickets had been sold for the outdoor concert.
"I thought the price of the tickets was very reasonable," he said. "There are a lot of overheads on a tour like this which could make an artist look for higher priced tickets." The scale of the tour - featuring 106 musicians, dancers, singers and background staff, 17 lorries and 10 buses - calls to mind U2's gargantuan Zoo TV and Pop Mart tours.
Merchandise sales on the tour are deemed to be "spectacular" by America's leading music industry merchandising and licencing company, Signature Networks, Inc. An average of €120,000 of Britney-related paraphernalia has been shifted every night, bringing her career merchandise sales to around €25m.
"The level of fan intensity for purchasing Britney concert merchandise is truly staggering," said Dell Furano, SNI's managing director. "Her concerts are clearly major events for her fans, who want to bring part of the experience home with them."
At her Dublin shows, fans had to fork out €20 for a glossy programme or €15 for a teeshirt. Trade was brisk.
US celebrity bible Entertainment Weekly estimates Spears' net worth to be almost $100m. Besides album sales and concert revenue, she has swelled her bank balance thanks to a reported €10m deal with Pepsi and a movie, 'Crossroads', which yielded her almost €2m.
The star that many, in a nod to Madonna, have dubbed the New Material Girl has not been afraid to spend her money while in Ireland. Last Friday evening, Brown Thomas was opened specially for her as she embarked on an hour-long shopping spree. |
