AC/DC "Sold 1.5 Million Tickets In One Day" For Power Up Tour, Says CAA Booking Agent

23:10 Thursday, 28 March 2024

Pollstar caught up with Chris Dalston - who serves as Co-Head of International Touring at CAA - to chat about the international market and the wild success of ticket sales for AC/DC’s Power Up Tour, which launches in Germany in May with support from The Pretty Reckless. An excerpt from the feature follows...

Pollstar: AC/DC’s Power Up Tour is the band’s first tour since 2016. How did you approach it?

Chris Dalston: "There was a lot of thought that went into it because we had to work around the Olympic Games in France and the European football championships in Germany. Now as agents we have to think about a lot of things that we didn’t have to think about many years ago, like the weather. One of the reasons the tour starts in Germany was because we had to find somewhere to rehearse for a week. And then it goes immediately into Italy and Spain because we believed if it gets to July and August it’s going to be way too hot and very dangerous for the fans and the band to be outside. I was in Europe last summer in Seville, and we had to delay shows until 11:30 at night because it was still 100 degrees outside. And then we have to be very careful of Brian [Johnson]’s voice that we don’t push it, that he feels comfortable in the schedule. Then you have to make sure the finances work."

Pollstar: Let’s talk about ticket sales.

Chris Dalston: "We believed it was going to be one of the biggest tours ever but you just never know until you put tickets on sale. It’s like Christmas the night before we went on sale. You can’t sleep, you’re nervous. I woke up at 2:30 or 3 in the morning and Europe had already opened - and we’d sold out some of the shows already. They sold 1.5 million tickets in one day. It’s staggering and it gives you great faith because they’re very particular in how they conduct their business. They don’t do VIP. They don’t do dynamic ticket pricing. They never want to hear fans complaining about ticket prices being too high. There’s also a point where we have to push it a little bit because otherwise they couldn’t afford to tour - especially when they’re playing one day on, three days off. Obviously the goal is to hopefully have them continue if they enjoy it and it works well... to try to keep them out in ’25, ’26, ’27, however long they want to go but we gotta get through Europe first."