Queen and Paul need to fire their PR team

If there has been anything that stood out the most about this tour it's that whoever is responsible for promoting this tour should be fired. Instantly.

Just look at the crowds, Pittsburg's numbers sounded dreadful. Brian has commented himself about the lack of promotion in the cities they play. What more do they need? An ACME anvil to fall on their heads?

The only bits of promotion they got (if you can call it that) were local newspaper interviews (god, how old fashioned is that?) and as far as I'm aware, the only national bit they got was on Rockline. I can't say for certain how much Rockline did for them without knowing what kind of numbers that show routinely brings in.

The single biggest mistake was not getting on US TV to promote the tour. Granted it's not over yet but it doesn't look like their "plans" (as they are) will change. Would it have killed them to get booked on any of the popular late night talk shows? Hell, Brian went on Jay Leno back in the early 90s (and that was before Leno was #1 in the ratings.)

The best they could muster for US TV was VH1 Classic (not exactly THE best place to get the word out) but even that wasn't going to help much because the show with Roger and Paul was taped last year with NO mention of a US tour.

I'll concede that some shows saw some fairly good numbers but overall it's been dismal I think. We should've had an inkling though. "Return of the Champions" got no promotion either (even now with them on tour, nothing. Couldn't Hollywood Records have placed a full page ad in Rolling Stone with something like "Queen+ Paul Rodgers: Return of the Champions on CD and DVD. NOW ON TOUR!" Something as simple as that?)

Hollywood Records have always had a pretty poor track record promoting Queen but their biggest excuse was that they had no "band" out there releasing new product or playing live to work with. They do now and yet they have still failed. Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised considering Hollywood Records is a second tier record label with only a handful of "name" artists and the majority of their releases being movie soundtracks.

To be fair, Queen must share some of the fault here. They chose to stick with the record label when they re-signed with them. Was it that there wasn't a single record company that held some modicum of interest in signing them, make some money off their catalog? Was it laziness on the band's behalf in not bothering to test the waters?

Queen have stuck to their guns but unfortunately are also stuck in a no-win situation. They seemingly refuse to try something new, work with different people and try to approach things in a fresh way. If anything, I hope this tour will open their eyes and make them realize something needs to change or else they will forever be stuck in the "also rans" category in the USA. America isn't Europe or Japan where you can ride on your reputation. You have to be agressive here and they clearly have not been. Their supporting team (record label, promotional folks, etc) have let them down in a big way.

They may never tour here again and I say it's NOT because of a lack of interest by the general population here. It's that, outside of their core fan base, nobody knows about the tour. Maybe this "hide and seek" approach to the tour would've worked better had they toured smaller clubs and whatnot instead of the bigger arenas (I think they got fooled by the turn outs in LA and New Jersey last year.)

Guys, if you want to go out with a bigger bang in the States, you'd better find a new way to look at things because right now, it ain't working.

I'll be attending the Chicago show this week and I desperately hope there will be more than 5,000 people there.

Excellent post Michael. I'm a believer that the fault lies with Queen Productions. QP is a huge company, and if Microsoft has a problem with fans not cooling their computers, it's a Microsoft issue, not the fan maker. QP had to have known what kind of promotional pitch was being made going in, or were they testing the US waters without making a big cash outlay? Either way, they choose who they work with (Hollywood Records, The Torpedo Twins, Greg Brooks, etc.) and they seem to make some funky choices.

Yes, i totally agree with everything you are saying and I've been thinking exactly the same thing for the last few days. I was at the Toronto show and even though it was close to a sell out i still saw some empty seats in the arena and that was really dissapointing to me as a fan. Earlier in the day i spoke to a few people at my work about the concert and all of them were surprised about Queen playing Toronto that night. I would say that about 50% of the people i spoke with said they would have seriously thought of going to the show had they known about it. Same thing happened to my friends who came to the show with me. They told me that many people they spoke with were not aware of the concert and showed interest.

So why was there so little promotion?

Bad decisions on behalf of QPR team but its too late now. I still enjoyed the concert but it would have been great to see a sell out weeks before the show.

It was the PR for this tour. But if they
come back to the states. They have to do
it as a summer tour. They then can play
AMPHITHETERS that hold less then the big
Arenas. I think the outdoor venues are
great for the Older acts that are still playing.
I love the venues

I was at the Toronto show and it was nice to see a decent sized crowd but if the general public knew it could easily have sold out.
In '93 there was no promotion for Brian's show in Toronto. I found out after he had finished. I would have given almost anything to have been there.
This tour is the same. No promotion.
Everyone I told was interested and with enough time all would have been able to adjust schedules, hire babysitters etc, in order to go see Q+PR.
There are fans out there who want to see Q+PR but they don't know.

face it. A group that has the same repertoire (spelling) over 20 years might been forgetten a bit, especially when they return as a 'cover band' with two essential members missing

I should say, better half full with motivated people then a full house with people who are not intrested

Who cares if you have a great time if there are 1 million people or just 100?

Being a attendance geek i totally agree with the fact that lack of pinpoint promotion is the issue.The diehards and rockers know about it,but who else??No mainstream media outlets were used to promote.VH1 Classic is reaching the audience who already knows and who the hell listens to Rockline anymore?This tour would have been better served advertising on ESPN or some of the Mens mags like Blender where young to mid aged males with a few bucks budgeted for entertainment are to be found.Also i think having someone as out of the loop as Paul Rodgers as your partner hurts.he would rather play the house of blues with Muddy Waters then arenas of this size.Having said all that this tour will still be near the top of the grossing tours because of the prices and the fact that the major cities have turned out well.

You're totally right. It was a shame how little promotion was going on in my hometown, Pittsburgh. I know Mellon Arena would have been way fuller if there was more advertising. The only advertising I saw was one article in the paper, and I think I heard 2 ads on the radio. There needs to be way more promotion than that for a band that's been in hibernation for so long.

The only commercial I heard for Queen coming to DC was on the all-news radio station. I heard it once - a day or two before the concert I think.

When I told people I was going to see Queen the response I would get was,it's not QUEEN or who's singing for them or when are they coming.If you're gonna do a tour after so many years you really have to get in peoples faces.

you know the other major problem was the venue choices and their location. Miami and jacksonville not good choices. They dont play atlanta they play a suburb, they come to Ny they play Nassau instead of MSG. Nassau is a dump. The Islanders dont even draw. Worcester?? Suburb of Boston.. Buffalo??? who plays Buffalo. Just bad choices all around I saw 4 shows here and i felt bad for them especially in Buffalo. Hopefully the rest of the tour gets better!

they dont hand pick the dates.The national promoter puts the show up for sale and local promoters in various cities buy the shows.What happens is the local guys fail to have a read for the markets they are in.The Queen show was so expensive from Metropolitan(national) that the venue size had to be arenas if the local outfits wanted to bid.Queen is paid in full before they even begun the tour and get the lions share of merchandise as they roll from town to town.In retrospect the fees for shows should have been staggered to allow for smaller venues in these remote and less populated areas like Jax or Buffalo.Although Brian says they have nothing to due with prices-he has everything to do with prices as QPR negotiates the demand with Metropolitan.They probably saw the full houses in NY and La earlier and had some smoke blown up their asses as well.

Bad Company typically gets more radio airplay then Queen in the NYC area anyway. The commerical for the tour on VH1 never showed that Paul would sing some of his stuff. They could have rotated a few different songs on the commercial - even I was getting sick of seeing/hearing WATC and WWRY over and over and over and over again. On Ticketmaster's home page, except for when the tour was announced, it was never mentioned and recently it was never mentioned on the site as a "hot" show or a must see show. No emails to Ticketmaster users to say tickets were still available, etc.

great point Donna.when you deal with anything "nostalgia" driven in sales its hard to read your market.What i think is that Metroplitan talent is very old school and Queen has been removed from the scene here.a deadly combo indeed.I also misread the tour as i thought they would do well.My excuse is i know here in Philly Queen are very popular and are in the other east coast cities as well.I also figured the tour,with VH1 as a national partner would be force fed into towns that needed a reminder that the tour was on.the shame is the local guys were probably given no "buyback" or refund from metropolitan so if Queen returns in any form these guys wont make the same mistake twice.i catch hell for saying this but too syphon 200.00 bucks a ticket from the the loyals was also a mistake and created a situation where these tix in many cases would not be used as gifts.