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Celeb News: Inside Nicki Minaj's Path to Arena Headliner
Member Since: 10/1/2011
Posts: 53,790
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Inside Nicki Minaj's Path to Arena Headliner
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Nicki Minaj's debut foray into headlining large venues in North America on the Pinkprint tour was a complete success on every level, the next phase of an ongoing strategy to position the artist as an elite headliner for years to come.
While her celebrity profile, fueled by an active social media following and a stint as an American Idol judge, is among the highest for any pop star, Minaj's touring history is limited. Minaj has performed in front of large crowds as support for such arena-level headliners Lil Wayne and Britney Spears, but the Pinkprint tour, in support of her 2014 album of the same name, was her first domestic big-building headlining tour. Veteran tour producer Shawn Gee, who co-manages Minaj with Gee Roberson at Maverick Management, says the strategy for Pinkprint actually began in 2012, when Minaj embarked on her first headlining tour of America.
Back in 2012, Minaj played arenas in the U.K., and large clubs and theaters in North America and the European continent. Since then, Minaj, Roberson and Gee have plotted relentless, "about touring strategy, where we want to be, and the steps we need to take," Gee tells Billboard. Back in '12, "Nicki's profile was really high, coming off of the last album, but she had never had a hard-ticket headlining date."
Gee describes Minaj as "a strategist in everything she does," playing critical roles in packaging, production and routing. "She's really in tune with her core consumer," he says, "which is evidenced by her social media numbers and outreach. The theater tour blew out, and that was the goal: to leave some demand outside of the doors. We wanted to make sure we left some tickets on the table, so when we came back and played the bigger buildings, with a larger profile and more catalog, that we caused a bit of a frenzy. This was definitely one of those 'I love it with a plan comes together' situations."
Another goal, given Minaj's global appeal, was to get the artist's profile on an even keel worldwide. "Her profile internationally back in 2012 was higher than her touring profile domestically," Gee points out. "We had to manage that, because as she moved along in her career, we wanted to make sure she had a proper balance from a profile perspective across the world. Obviously, we want to play similar-sized buildings [globally] so we can have the same production, we can amortize costs across the world, as opposed to having to build two different productions for two different sized venues."
Mission accomplished. On this year's run, Minaj was able to continue in arenas in the U.K., and grow to arenas on the European continent while developing new markets like Germany, which grew from clubs to arenas for Minaj. "We were able to bring that same momentum back over to the States and it sort of evened out, whereas three years ago it was a bit imbalanced," Gee says.
According to Gee, Minaj was able to grow as a performer and build on her creative vision with the Pinkprint. "Laurieanne Gibson was the creative director, and she and Nicki really put together an amazing visual show, and Nicki delivered from top to bottom," Gee says. "The growth in her as an artist, as a performer, everything was in line for this summer, and she knocked it out of the park."
Minaj began her touring in support of Pinkprint with string of European headlining dates in March, followed by a sellout headlining the BET Experience festival at Staples Arena in Los Angeles. She then played 10 European festivals, a goal of Minaj, according to Gee, before returning to North America. "This was our first step up into the big buildings, so we wanted to be careful of the markets we picked, and we wanted to take it out the entire summer," Gee explains. "Nicki hand-picked the markets, and once we had the routing together and built around what we were doing early summer in Europe, everything fell into place with the markets and buildings we wanted to play."
The North American leg began July 12, a 21-date run of primarily amphitheaters, with a few arenas including a sellout at Barclays Center in Brooklyn that grossed $1.3 million, according to Boxscore. The tour did "extremely well," Gee says, averaging about 14,000 tickets per show. Between Barclays and Holmdel, N.J., Minaj sold 30,000 tickets in the New York/New Jersey market in one weekend, and other highlights included 19,000 tickets sold in Dallas, 21,000 in Philadelphia, and 22,000 in Chicago. The tour wrapped last week in Edmonton, with a total gross of about $14 million, according to Boxscore, with 321,525 tickets sold for an average nightly count of 14,652.
Touring in support of this album cycle may not yet be over, with Australia, Asian, and other global markets potentially yet to come. "We toured [Australia and Asia] on the last cycle, those are really big markets for her, so we're still looking at hitting those markets, hopefully later this year," Gee says. "We want to look at South America, Africa, so we're looking at the rest of the world at this point. The album dropped in December of last year, right at the top of the new year is when we started building her set and rehearsing. So January through September we focused mostly on Europe, the U.S. and Canada, and now we're looking at the rest of the world for the next six to 12 months."
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Full: http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...irection=false
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 58,053
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Member Since: 3/3/2014
Posts: 3,453
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Gee describes Minaj as "a strategist in everything she does," playing critical roles in packaging, production and routing.
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Does this finally clear up the Only lyric video issue??
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Member Since: 10/1/2011
Posts: 53,790
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Originally posted by DouglasBooth
Does this finally clear up the Only lyric video issue??
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The issue where Nicki said she had to lend the reigns to someone else because she had to finish her album that was backed up completely?
Yeah, it does. **** was cleared up 10 months ago. Keep up.
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Member Since: 9/2/2012
Posts: 7,210
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Quote:
Originally posted by DouglasBooth
Does this finally clear up the Only lyric video issue??
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nnn except for that 
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Banned
Member Since: 6/9/2011
Posts: 17,950
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Quote:
Originally posted by DouglasBooth
Does this finally clear up the Only lyric video issue??
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Member Since: 8/6/2015
Posts: 660
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I love that she's always working so hard behind the scenes 
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 2,528
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Can't wait to see this plan push Nic into stadiums. Increasing touring demand by limiting her venues is actually pretty genius. Idk about touring like that so idk if that's normal procedure but it definitely works. As soon as Nic plays in Maryland, I'm paying top dollar for a ticket. I wonder if her album approach was specifically crafted for this touring strategy.
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Member Since: 8/6/2012
Posts: 5,333
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Originally posted by YemiKing
Can't wait to see this plan push Nic into stadiums. Increasing touring demand by limiting her venues is actually pretty genius. Idk about touring like that so idk if that's normal procedure but it definitely works. As soon as Nic plays in Maryland, I'm paying top dollar for a ticket. I wonder if her album approach was specifically crafted for this touring strategy.
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Nicki will never have a stadium tour, but I'm sure she will have a string of successful arena tours to come.
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 10,438
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 10,438
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Originally posted by AMENHOOKER
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did you miss this part?
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Originally posted by Willy.
The issue where Nicki said she had to lend the reigns to someone else because she had to finish her album that was backed up completely?
Yeah, it does. **** was cleared up 10 months ago. Keep up.
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Member Since: 6/2/2012
Posts: 37,284
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I'm so proud of her. 
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 14,512
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Originally posted by Yanko
did you miss this part?
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lol they stay blind when it benefits them
------
So proud
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 13,381
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Quote:
Originally posted by DouglasBooth
Does this finally clear up the Only lyric video issue??
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Member Since: 1/6/2014
Posts: 1,103
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South American, Australian, Asian and African dates are coming 
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Member Since: 6/13/2012
Posts: 2,065
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So much for the rumors of her tour not doing good.
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Member Since: 12/2/2011
Posts: 52,765
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Where are the haters that said the tour flopped? 
Never doubt the Queen of Rap 
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Member Since: 8/29/2011
Posts: 3,420
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Originally posted by KingsOfLeon1994
Where are the haters that said the tour flopped?
Never doubt the Queen of Rap |
Getting their tickets refunded elsewhere.
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Member Since: 7/21/2012
Posts: 28,099
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The Pinkprint Tour has definitely grossed over $20M. Actuals are not in, but Pollstar had about $6M for the few reported European dates.
And lets not forget she has yet to finish the tour. My prediction of $30M-$40M is on lock, but y'all didn't believe me.
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Member Since: 8/18/2013
Posts: 11,764
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Wow Queen of Rap keeps on slaying proud of her
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