Could The Motley Crue Tour Be Heading To Ames?

Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Poison could be heading to Ames next summer.

My sources tell me that Live Nation, the company booking this huge 2020 tour, have reached out to officials at Jack Trice Stadium about possibly making it a tour stop. I need to remind everyone: Nothing has been confirmed and this is still just a possibility.

Jack Trice Stadium has hosted some pretty big concerts over the last 20 years. Acts like Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, and Billy Joel have all played the stadium that was built back in 1973.

From the numbers I've seen, this tour needs to sell a lot of tickets. In the blog I posted yesterday, I listed the costs of each band and what a break even number looks like. You can read that full article right here.

But I'm worried about this tour not selling enough ticket in the smaller markets. My math has a break even on these shows at around 46,000 tickets sold at $70 per ticket. If the show does in fact land here in the heartland, can we support it?

Ames has a population of about 67,000 people. Des Moines, Iowa's largest city at 218,000, is just 30 minutes from the venue and from Cedar Rapids down Highway 30 it's about a 90 minute trip. So if you think about it, Ames is a perfect spot and very central.

But 46,000 tickets seems like a lot. Metallica did about 30,000 in Newton a few years ago. Can this line-up double that? I would say no.

If the concert fell on a Saturday night in Ames, my gut tells me it would sell around 26,000 tickets. That's a nice gross, but not the BIG money that's been talked about in the initial planning of this tour.

26,000 tickets would be a gross potential (at an average of $70 per ticket) of around $1,820,000. Is this enough cash for the promoters to bring the show to Ames? I'm just not sure it is.

If the date is routed after say a Minneapolis date, perhaps the guarantee for the promoter could be a little less so this show could become a reality. Smaller markets are key to a successful tour and I sure hope they can make it happen!

My source told me if anything happens the announcement would come on 'Black Friday," November 29th, the day after Thanksgiving. Again, at this point it's all speculation and nothing has been confirmed.

We will continue to follow this story and provide updates as soon as we learn more information.