Elvis Costello show

I hadn’t heard about this either. How much were tickets? I’ve skipped a few big shows that I would have loved to have seen because the tickets were upwards of $130 for a 1-2 hour set. Tori Amos is coming to Canberra next month but I heard that tix are around $150, which I just can’t afford 🙁

I didn’t know Elvis Costello was doing a show here. I also hadn’t heard about Jamiroquai or Garbage coming to Canberra recently. But I knew about Pink and some of the other big names because they were all over the commercial radio stations here. There’s no shortage of more accessible places to promote shows in Canberra though, I wonder if some of the promoters just don’t know where to promote here? I know that in other types of businesses, the advertising forms that work well in Sydney and Melbourne fall flat in Canberra, maybe the same applies to the music business?

It’s not just Royal Theatre’s fault (I’m not across their promo efforts on this one), it’s largely the people of the ACT who are to blame. In recent years I’ve been in half empty Royal Theatres, AIS Arena, and ANU Bars/ Green Room for bands/artists like Placebo, Bernard Fanning, Garbage, Jamiroquai, INXS, Dappled Cities Fly and the list goes on, which would sell out in Sydney. Even the Presets couldn’t sell out AIS arena earlier this year.
However, Pink, Delta and Missy Higgins have sold out AIS arena over the years, so Canberra can do it when it wants to. Canberra used to get A Day On The Green but poor turn outs led to it being scrapped. I blame Canberra audiences being too boring and needing to be told what’s cool. Some of the above mentioned acts aren’t my cup of tea necessarily but they’re big names and don’t need to come to canberra. Many don’t bother the next time around.

A plug, but very true. I’m a fan of Elvis Costello and just the sort who would go to a concert of his, but I hadn’t heard of it. I read Riotact daily and certainly would have heard of it if it had been advertised here. And no, I don’t have any affiliation with Riotact, just an avid reader and occasional contributer.

I hadn’t heard it was on!

Agreed, the Royal Theatre website is hopeless at actually doing anything for their shows. And Ticketek isn’t much better. Had a huge problem trying to find how to buy tickets for Dylan Moran at the beginning of the year.

And its a shame about the low numbers. If only there was a local website they could have promoted it more effectively on.

[end blantant plug]