COLUMBUS — The Trans-Siberian Orchestra continues to find success, despite the odds
The emerging alliance of Ticketmaster and Live Nation has elevated ticket prices. That factor, coupled with 2010′s apocalyptic concert sales figures and the record industry’s steady revenue decline, paint a foreboding picture. Yet somehow, during the economic turmoil of 2008 and 2009, the Pink Floyd-esque rock opera began selling more tickets than any single year since its 1993 inception.
“2010 has been the worst year for tours in the history of rock … we were scared going into 2008 and 2009,” said Paul O’Neill, TSO’s co-founder and creative director.
Yet the 55-year-old rock ‘n’ roll veteran said the rapidly changing landscape improved dramatically as the year continued.
“Sales were soft at the beginning, but there was a boom after the election this year,” O’Neil said. “I don’t know why, but I do know that I’ve always been adamant about our ticket prices being no more than $70.”
According to O’Neill’s advisers, 25 percent of any concert’s ticket sales are acquired by scalpers, which is why most arena acts double or triple the price for tickets in the “golden circle,” or the best 2,000 seats. But for years O’Neill has refused to give in to pressures to increase TSO’s price tag.
“I think that the kid who delivers your paper should have just as fair a chance as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates to get good seats,” said O’Neill, himself a rock producer/promoter extraordinaire who’s worked with the likes of Madonna, Sting and Bon Jovi.
Earlier in his career, he worked at Leber- Krebs Inc., a managing firm that represented numerous rock acts during the 1980s, including AC/DC, Def Leppard and Aerosmith.
Instead of following advice to dial down the show’s massive production — which has become famous for its epic lighting cues, pyrotechnics and master sound mixing — O’Neill said the show is bigger and flashier then ever.
“One part of the show has 3,000 lighting changes in 60 seconds,” he said.
O’Neill said he considers Columbus a mainstay on the group’s international touring schedule, because an Ohio date was the first show on its small 1996 debut tour to go on sale.
“It sold out in three hours, and everything kind of took off from there,” he said. “Ohio is really the birthplace of our live tour … it’s like going home.”
The concert at Nationwide Arena will start with a first act featuring music from TSO’s wildly popular holiday trilogy — “Christmas Eve and Other Stories,” “The Christmas Attic” and “The Lost Christmas Eve” — while the second half focuses on the orchestra’s other endeavors, including tunes from its latest album, “Night Castle.”
The second act also will showcase music from TSO’s upcoming rock musical, “Gutter Ballet and the New York City Blues Express,” the orchestra’s first foray into a full theatrical production, with plans to premiere on Broadway.
As for TSO’s future, O’Neill said a television movie adaptation of “Beethoven’s Last Night” (the 2000 album featured on the wildly popular spring tour) is on the horizon as well as a new album, “Romanov: What Kings Must Whisper,” about the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, the music of which already has been written and arranged.
“Right now, I’m just trying to find the voices,” O’Neill said. “Writing the songs and the story is just half the battle. The key is always finding the right singers.”
TSO is working on both albums simultaneously with no set release dates.
“Whichever album is finished first is the one that will be released first,” O’Neill said.
If You Go
TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA WINTER TOUR 2010
