On Oct. 10, in New Orleans, the Rolling Stones faced something they hadn't seen in years.
Empty seats.
Of the 38,000 seats available for the band's show at the Louisiana Superdome, just over 32,000 were sold.
This was not any cause for alarm: The show still grossed $1.4 million. The Stones' Voodoo Lounge tour, playing almost exclusively outdoor stadiums, has, after 34 shows, been seen by 1,493,818 people and grossed more than $69 million -- and that's with much of America not yet played and Mexico, South America and Europe still to go.
The Stones are obviously not going to be relegated to playing bars for beer money any time soon. But even they are feeling the effects of a summer/fall concert season glutted with rare appearances by major acts (the Eagles, Pink Floyd) as well as a heavy schedule of shed and arena shows by everybody from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Bonnie Raitt to Aerosmith to Metallica to Eric Clapton to James Taylor to ZZ Top to Phil Collins.
Also vying for America's discretionary income was Lollapalooza, the re-formed Traffic and the unique co-headlining stadium tour featuring Billy Joel and Elton John.
Everybody was out on the road this summer -- and almost everybody who ventured out into the marketplace felt the effects, playing to smaller crowds than in the past.
Even the heavily publicized Stones tour, the band's first in five years and the subject of extensive media coverage and overwhelmingly positive reviews, is not doing quite as well as past jaunts.
The band is still doing incredible business and selling out multiple nights in major markets such as Oakland, Chicago and New York. But at least two shows, in Indianapolis and New Orleans, did not sell out.
As of late last week, there were still about 3,000 tickets available for the band's Friday show at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, according to Jim Monaco of Concert Productions International, the Canadian company promoting the tour.
The Rolling Stones are playing to fewer people per night than in the past, averaging about 40,000 per show as opposed to 60,000. In several markets, including Dallas, the band is playing one night instead of the two nights it played on tours in 1981 and 1989. Numerous shows have taken longer to sell out than in past years.
"I think the industry is surprised by it and a couple of heads are being scratched," says Jane Cohen of Fort Worth's Performance magazine.
"Maybe a lot of people that saw them the last time were satisfied by that. Nobody expected to see the Eagles again, and with Pink Floyd, nobody does the stadium spectacle better. There's an ethereal, dreamy quality to their music, which is totally opposite to the spectacle of the Stones. Apparently what the Floyd had to offer appeals to a greater generational crossover."
Understandably, Mr. Monaco and local promoters, such as Arnie Granat of Chicago's Jam Productions and Barry Leff of New Orleans' Beaver Productions, emphasize that the band is selling out just about everywhere, and that the show, by all accounts, is an excellent one, with amazing staging and the Stones playing at peak form.
Several concert-industry experts -- including Mr. Leff and Gary Bongiovani of Pollstar -- say that the slight dip in Stones sales in some markets is probably less due to the band's popularity now as compared to the past as it is to the huge number of high-dollar tours that have come through. After all, many of the classic-rock tours appeal to basically the same fans. Some people just don't have the money to attend the Eagles and Pink Floyd and the Stones and, say, Aerosmith or ZZ Top.
"The climate is a lot more big shows out there -- nothing is selling out as fast as it was," says Mr. Bongiovani. "Nothing sold as fast as it could have, even though the Stones sold out Little Rock in one day. There's a lot of tours out there, and people are being more cautious, just because the climate is more competitive."
Mr. Bongiovani says that "if the Stones had toured last year they'd have been the only stadium act out there. It would be wrong to give the impression that they're stiffing by any means, but there have been some stadiums where they've only sold two-thirds of the house. This has just been an exceptionally heavy summer and there are a tremendous amount of strong attractions and lessened focus on the Stones."
Also, he says, the older fans that make up the core of the Stones' audience might be unwilling to go through the hassles that accompany a stadium show too many times in one year. He counts himself as an example: After being mired in a two-hour traffic jam to see Pink Floyd in Los Angeles, Mr. Bongiovani decided to skip the Stones' LA stadium shows. Instead, he flew to Las Vegas to see the band play one of only two indoor arena dates on the tour.
"When you get to people in their 30s or 40s, they only go to one or two shows per year," he says. "The stadium experience is an experience -- once you've done it once, you don't want to do it again."
But, Mr. Bongiovani adds, nobody stays hot forever, and although the Stones have never -- to their considerable credit -- tried to lure fans with the old "this is our last tour" ploy, Ms. Cohen thinks this may be the last time the band tours on this scale.
"We all knew in '89 the Stones had one more big tour in them, and I don't think they do now," she says.