Lady Gaga’s 2014 Tour In Danger Of Becoming Artflop

Hailed as the new Queen of Pop at the turn of the decade, the world’s most famous meat dress-wearer now appears to have lost her crown following a disastrous six months which has seen sales of both her third album, ARTPOP, and Lady Gaga tickets for its accompanying tour plummet.

The 27-year-old first had to watch Katy Perry’s comeback single “Roar” shift almost twice as many copies as her own lead single, “Applause,” in its first week. Then she fired her manager Troy Carter following the underwhelming performance of its parent album on the Billboard 200. And now, her artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball tour is reportedly in danger of losing concert promoter LiveNation over $30 million because of poor demand.

Indeed, the Milwaukee Examiner recently claimed that her forthcoming set at the city’s Summerfest was on the verge of being cancelled due to a lack of interest. While despite selling out five shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden on The Monster Ball tour in 2010/11, there are still thousands of Lady Gaga tickets remaining for her single date at the historic venue on May 13 (TicketIQ get-in price $93/average price $361).

To make matters worse, her pop superstar rivals are having little trouble attracting fans to their respective tours. Her most recent chart nemesis recently added a further 12 North American dates to her ‘reasonably-priced’ Prismatic world tour following the phenomenal demand for Katy Perry tickets. While Beyonce tickets for the Mrs Carter Show world tour have so far grossed nearly $200 million, making it one of the highest-grossing by a female artist in concert history.

Of course it’s not the first time that one of Gaga’s tours has run into trouble. Only last year she was forced to cancel almost the entirety of the Born This Way Ball tour’s North American leg due to a hip injury, although rumours later surfaced that Live Nation in fact called for its demise because low sales of Lady Gaga tickets couldn’t justify its huge production costs. While alongside reports of mass giveaways and discounts for many of the same tour’s South American dates, Gaga also had to move a show in France to a smaller venue to avoid the embarrassment of performing in front of a half-empty arena.

The artRAVE tour, which officially kicks off at Fort Lauderdale’s BB&T Center on May 4 ($63/$300) and takes in a further 56 dates before wrapping up at Lisbon’s MEO Arena on November 10, will no doubt be nothing short of spectacular. But with thousands of Lady Gaga tickets still available for most shows, it seems unlikely that the ‘Poker Face’ star will reclaim her throne any time soon.