Like myself, we shall now travel clear across the country for yet another example of celebration. And believe me, New York was a hell of a party on the R30 Tour.

The two shows at Radio City Music Hall were both verified "Sellouts," and there were a total of five such events (Radio City (2), Red Rocks, Montreal and of course, Toronto) during the tour. Man, that place was SMALL, like, 5,949 available seats small, except there weren't any left at 8 p.m. That means 11,898 lucky fans rewarded the band with a check for.....$1,104,412.00 Ducks. George Washingtons. BIG money. Small venue. Smallest capacity venue grosses largest receipts. That is interesting, isn't it?

CHA-CHING!

There are two reasons for this. Face value tickets were $129.50, and the lowest priced tix were $44.50. The two Radio City Music hall events (consider them to be one event) was the highest grossing concert on the tour for the information I have available (that would be a small disclaimer, thank you, a good notation being that I have received this information (no, that's wrong - I PAID for this information) from a reliable third party reporting agency and I'm just INTERPRETING the data). Hollywood Bowl had a minimum ticket price of $43.50.

In order to understand more fully what this all means, we really do have to look at an "average" show for comparison.

Unfortunately, I do not have data for the opener in Nashville or for my home town show in San Diego. But that might be forthcoming. How about cozy little Bonner Springs, KS? That will provide a nice contast. Smaller market. Middle of the country. Face value tickets were $67 and the lowest priced tickets were $10 (we'll get to that fact in a minute). Attendance was 7,176 out of 13,910. The gross for the Evening with Rush was $330,229.00. Quite a difference, yes? Why? Ticket prices, of course. Ticket price is everything, and is based on market tollerance.

So the Bonner Springs tickets were HALF the price of Radio City Music Hall and the lowest priced ticket was $10. Who got those seats? Most lawn seats were, estimated, around $30 to $40, which is still pretty darn steep for that kind of seat. However, I have been informed that the $10 tickets, with me guessing correctly before being informed, are special offers, offered for promotional purposes and a variety of other things. Sometimes there are buy one get one free lawn tickets, etc., offered by radio stations...comps, etc., you get the picture. The majority of us won't see that price, though.

The key to making money isn't really the price of the highest ticket face value. Fiscal success really DOES depend on the face value and sales of the LOWER priced tickets because you will sell MORE of those. At first this may seem strange, but all the data I have (and there's a lot) points to this phenomena, which is also news to me. But it makes sense! A venue will sell more lower priced tickets than higher priced ones based on seating. If you sell 2,000 seats at $69.50 (a mere $139,000.00) and say 7,000 at $40 bucks a pop ($280,000.00), now you can see how that magic works. As bizarre as it may seem, you might actually be "a better fan" if you buy a LOWER priced seat because you are contributing MORE to the gross ticket sales! One of those Ripley's Believe It or Not type of situations.

How about Red Rocks? Beautiful Red Rocks. I'll be there next time. Capacity and tix were both sold out at 8,561. Gross receipts? $580,225.00, half a million bucks. Work in a second night there and you have Radio City all over again, surpassed. Tickets were $85 and $40. Look at that magic lower number work compared to the Bonner Springs show. The difference between letting some tickets go at $10 and the ones offered at venues with $40 minimum seats multiplied by thousands...equals THOUSANDS of dollars. A $30 difference between tickets multiplied by 5,000 is $150,000. Simple figures show the true value of the lower priced seating phenomena.

I have data for 39 of the shows. Here are the totals, in case you want to know how much your heros are making off of your hard earned cashola. But please, understand two words. I beg of you. I have kidded around, fooled around, joked, made some good analysis, etc., etc. off the numbers I have been able to acquire.

But please, please remember Gross and Overhead and "view these numbers responsibly." You are looking at raw numbers. Not after taxes. Not after paying for the pyro. Nothing has been taken out for rent of the venues. Security. Catering. Massages. Booze and bar. Hotels. Plane rental. Travel expenses. Broken strings. Blown amps. Drumsticks. Drumheads. Pirate hats. Roadie labor. Local labor. Trucks and drivers and gas. Salaries for the ENTIRE crews from everyone who contracted and worked on the tour. Production, logistics, management, etc., etc., etc.

For 39 shows:

Gross Receipts: $19,823.915.00

Total Attendance: 390,046

Total Capacity: 589,476

Total Shows: 39

Total Sellouts: 5

If I receive updates to these numbers they will be posted.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing what you have been a part of as fans - and maybe these pages have provided you "A Glimpse of What's Beyond," and maybe as fans you might now gain a new perspective on a variety of things discussed and presented here. It's hard to estimate the total numbers given the fact that I only have partial data, but the data I have seems to be very consistent. I do not know if numbers will be available from the European Leg, I highly doubt that I will obtain those, so please "Hold Your Fire" with a ton of questions because the data is already presented accurately to its limit here.

I might be able to find the time to update this page and put individual numbers together for the 39 shows that I have the data for, but it will take quite some time. My last statement would be a guess...but I know after receiving these numbers that the total attandance seems to be my favorite statistic, and would gather that when it's all over in a couple of days that over three quarters of a million people (less than they made at Radio City, person/dollar) enjoyed seeing Rush on it's 30th Anniversary Tour, and that is really something special the band can have with them forever. A true 'Show of Hands" and an Echo for their Test. What a birthday treat this has been for them as a total experience for the band!!!! Success makes one...happy!

Thanks for all the great music (and thanks to the thousands of fans I met, emailed and who provided content and images for this site), travel, experiences and 30 years of rock and roll, Rush. And when you all feel like you are Losing It, just remember the Echoes of Old Applause, and you will feel fine in just a few minutes.

Oh, and just a couple of other little factoids. This does not even begin to include any type of merchandise totals from the shows, and from what I saw, and what everyone was saying, the stuff was selling like it was the end of the world or something...It took eight hours of of working continuously to put this all together after a nine hour work day, and if I took home $35,000 net each year for 40 years, I would only make $1.4 million dollars, just over the two night, seven hour, 60 song performance that was Radio City Music Hall on August 18th and 19th. How about you?

Thank you!

GOODNIGHT!!!!!! (12:48 A.M., 9/29/04).

- jman2112