Arcade Fire are apparently struggling to fill venues on their current arena tour

06 November 2017, 11:27 | Written by Laurence Day

(News)

(Arcade Fire)

Arcade Fire's new album Everything Now (and its omnipresent marketing campaign) has been one of the biggest music events of 2017, but apparently no one cares enough to go see them play it.

According to reports in North America, Arcade Fire are struggling to even half fill some venues on their current North American tour, with "only" 4000-6000 attendees at shows in Quebec City, Tampa, Florida, and Austin, Texas. The venues in these cities have capacities between approximately 10,000-20,000, with the upper levels shut off completely for some shows, and discounted tickets being made available as the shows creep nearer.

Is some of this down to space being taken up by their ambitious boxing ring-style stage? Maybe; not all of it though, by the sounds of things.

It's not all barren wastelands at Arcade Fire shows, with some hitting dizzying numbers - in Vancouver frontman Win Butler told a crowd of 15,000(ish): "We've played cities three times as big with half as many people, so this is really a thing of beauty for us..."