Event Preview: Margo Price in SD, LA, SF & James Corden

Event Preview: 

 Margo Price in SD, LA, SF & James Corden

2/7  @The Observatory North Park San Diego, CA.

2/8  James Corden TV Show

2/9  @ The Fonda, Los Angeles, CA.

2/10 @ The Filmore San Francisco, CA.

2/11 @  Van Duzer Theater Arcata, CA.

   One of the calls I frequently over hear in my living room is the weekly "Margo Touring Call" between management and her booking agency.  Margo has a very good book agent/team and even though it isn't directly related to anything the public knows or cares about, it's worth commenting that she has an extremely strong touring game in the opinion of her booking agents, who are in a position to know.

   From a practical stand point, Margo is attempting to establish herself as an Artist who can sell 1000 tickets in 15-20 US markets, and as someone who can sell 500-1000 tickets or play as an up-bill artist on a regional festival or support an arena/stadium level artist in another 75 markets.  Margo is very competitive on that first metric- selling 1000 tickets in 15-20 US markets.   As far as that second metric- she is very much already there.  One of the things I know to be true is that Margo gets more quirky regional festival offers- both here and in Canada than anyone.  Those offers are great because they pay well and there isn't any personal pressure to sell tickets (downside is that such festivals often don't draw well.

        What is crazy to contemplate is going from being able to sell 1000 tickets in a specific city to being able to sell 10,000, which is the next step as far as measurements are concerned.  It's the equivalent of going from being the well compensated opener for artists who CAN do that- Chris Stapleton or Willie Nelson to BEING that artist.  It seems like a much bigger gap  to cover, especially if you consider that the biggest artist in the world at their height doesn't reach 100,000 sold tickets anywhere for anything ever- festivals like Glastonbury have a capacity over 200 thousand but it would be hard to attribute any specific sale to the headlining artist.

    In fact, the number of touring musicians who average over 10,000 at a show is pretty minimal.  It has to be under 100 and there are artists with billions of streams who can't do that.  In fact, the connection between amazing streaming numbers and amazing ticket sales is weak and it is basically incumbent on any artist in that category to actually demonstrate that ability OR the assumption is that they can't do it, and that the streaming numbers are "bigger than the associated artist identity." 

    But it's that other metric the ability to play in a hundred different markets, that makes Margo Price's live show so compelling.  For example, I know that she has discussed playing a show in Jackson MS, which is the 99 biggest MSA in the US.  I believed she played a festival within the radius of Scranton PA last year (100), Chatanooga TN (101), no problem, Portland, Maine(103)- playing it this year opening for Tyler Childers,  Reno, NV (114), got an offer etc.   You compare that reach to a more niche genre act- there is no comparison.