SOHN cancels UK tour due to low ticket sales and changes venue for London show

19 October 2022, 15:58 | Written by Cerys Kenneally

(News)

(SOHN)

SOHN has announced that his UK tour dates outside of London won't be going ahead because of low ticket sales, and has also shared details of a venue change for his London show.

Next month SOHN was due to play some UK shows in support of his third album Trust, but in a statement shared on socials a couple of days ago, SOHN announced that all of the shows aside from his London date have been cancelled.

"I really hate to be writing this but (like a lot of artists it seems) I've been forced to cancel my UK tour in November (London show will go ahead at a different venue)," SOHN wrote. "I've been thinking about how best to communicate this and I thought the most respectful way is just to be as transparent as possible. The bottom line is simply not enough tickets have been sold in the towns outside of London. I’ve not played in most of these places before (or in a very long time) and we attempted to do a UK tour in good faith, but now it seems just too big a risk to try to play these shows."

He continued, "You may already be aware that we are in a really difficult period for live music ticket sales – in my opinion there are many reasons. After a couple of years of no live music so many acts are touring at the same time, I think in the boom years tickets became disrespectfully expensive, I think COVID got us used to staying at home, a lot of my audience probably became new parents (me included) and there is financial instability everywhere. Most tours out there are suffering in some way, even though social media makes it look like they’re not."

As well as writing about how low ticket sales results in artists, promoters, venues and staff losing money, SOHN added, "Tours at this level are under huge pressure right now just to break even, only becoming profitable when the majority of venues are close to sold out, which is not the case with these UK dates. It becomes a huge financial risk for me and my young family to go ahead with it, a huge risk for the promoters who booked the shows, and a huge risk for the live music venues. It’s a risk I’m sadly just unable to take."

He concluded, "I'm so, so sorry that the result of all this is that you, the concert-goer, are the ones who end up getting messed around by all this ... Thank you all so much for your support, I really appreciate how disappointing this is, it is for me too. Healthy touring businesses will return for us all at some point in the future. It’s just a very tough time right now."

The statement also revealed that his London show, which was originally due to take place at The Roundhouse on 19 November, will move to Electric Ballroom on the same date.