On Kacey Musgraves Canceling Numerous “Middle of Nowhere” Tour Dates

Kacey Musgraves has announced that multiple early dates on her upcoming “Middle Of Nowhere Tour” have been canceled, with no explanation for the cancellations, and no plans to reschedule them. The dates affected are August 20th at the United Center in Chicago, August 29th at TD Garden in Boston, and September 2nd at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The Chicago date was the opening date of the tour.

Though Musgraves and the media who’ve reported on the cancellations appear to be playing coy about the reason, it’s pretty obvious with some simple deduction what’s going on here.

First off, all of these dates are double up dates in the markets that were added after the original tour dates were announced, meaning there were second dates added after the perceived demand was high. When the “Middle Of Nowhere Tour” was first announced in late April, the opening date in Chicago was actually supposed to be August 21st. Then they added August 20th. Same goes for the August 29th show in Boston. It wasn’t originally on the tour calendar.

September 2nd at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York was also a date added after dates at Madison Square Garden on August 31st and September 1st sold through well. So this was not a situation of the tour not selling … at least not for the original dates announced. It was about biting off more than they could chew after seeing strong sales in these markets initially. Adding 2nd and 3rd dates to markets is a sign of strength, even if they ended up having to pull back from them.

Also it’s worth noting that these are arena dates for an artist that has never received significant radio support. They’re also “in the round,” meaning Musgraves isn’t playing to one side of an arena, but with seats selling in 360-degree sight lines. She’s selling through strongly in large venues where the entire arena is being utilized, along with floor seating, though some sections might be curtained off.

Is this one of these issues of “Blue Dot Fever”—the term used for when tours or events don’t sell through well, and is illustrated by the available blue dots on the TicketMaster seating chart? It might have been for the dates that were added and that have now been cancelled. But the dates that still exist in Chicago and Boston show that most of the seats have sold out. Some of the inventory that is left is in areas with restricted sight lines, like behind poles or the front-of-house mix station.

You can see the seating charts for the remaining concerts in Boston and Chicago below. Compared to other “Blue Dot Fever” maps we’ve seen this year, it looks nearly sold-out, and with some weeks still until the events.

So no, this is not a case where the popularity of Kacey Musgraves is cratering, public sentiment on her has soured, or anything of the sort. In fact, for an artist who’s primarily built her career off of critical acclaim—even if she has used sex appeal in part to sell her recent project—Kacey Musgraves is kind of killing it. They just though she was killing it harder than she actually was, and got a little ahead of themselves doubling up on in-the-round arena dates.

Kacey’s new album Middle of Nowhere has been well-received and appears to be streaming well, even if there’s not a super hit on it. Kacey will be fine, and being able to play arenas is already a victory for her. But two or three arena dates in-the-round in the same market is a difficult task for any artist to sell through strongly. She’s not Garth Brooks, and that’s okay.

It’s the images from the ongoing Post Malone / Jelly Roll tour that cancelled multiple dates early on and still is seeing many empty seats that should be drawing attention, not Kacey Musgraves. Nonetheless, the cancellations are inconveniencing for people, those extra dates should haven’t been booked, and frankly, fans deserve a formal explanation.

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