Why no large arena tours 1972- 1975?

[Mike D 23]

The Carpenters were selling enough albums during these years to follow the Rock artist model of touring. Once a year a 30-50 date tour playing arenas,that held 10,000 seats and up. I've read they were doing over 100 a concerts a year in this timeframe,correct? Generally small venues. Why not,for example,in the northeast hit MSG,Nassau Coliseum,Boston Garden,Capital Center,Hartford Civic Center,Buffalo Aud,etc. Less actual dates,more "big money" venues = less time on the road,maybe more bootlegs. Smarter course like this may have helped Karen especially. Your thoughts?

 

[GDBY2LV]

They did play the Hollywood Bowl at least 2 times, which hold over 17,000 fans. Last time in the fall of 1974. Not sure of the capacity of the venue in Pa. they seemed to like playing. Harry might though?

 

[Mike D 23]

They did play the Hollywood Bowl at least 2 times, which hold over 17,000 fans. Last time in the fall of 1974. Not sure of the capacity of the venue in Pa. they seemed to like playing. Harry might though?

Thank you for responding. I know they did play some bigger venues. I'm just thinking, if they skipped a lot of these 2- 5000,and just tightened up the schedule,with bigger shows, they could have spent less time on the road. Less strain on the two. Again,say 40 dates over 3 months, come home, live a little, then have plenty of time to record the next album. I know I'm Monday morning quarterbacking here and all the people who got to see them in those 150+ concerts, would not be happy with my idea

 

[GDBY2LV]

Carpenters attracted a mature, more sophisticated audience, of mostly adults, not kids that love arena shows that are hot, and uncomfortable after awhile. They also didn’t play really long concerts, which most arena concerts are. Therefore they would have to share the bill with other acts. We all know how that went. They were just better off at smaller more intimate venues. Even the Hollywood Bowl is considered an upscale venue, and shows or concerts there are expensive. Therefore the need to perform more dates to get the same amount of fans in the rooms. I agree the Arena idea is just that. An idea. I don’t think it would have worked for them, or their fans. The next largest venue I saw them at is the Selland Arena in Fresno, with a capacity of a little over 11,000 patrons. Still pretty good for 1976. It helped that Helen Reddy opened for them there.

 

[newvillefan]

This question has always bugged me. They could have quite easily played to arenas of 10,000+ regularly in their heyday so why did their management focus on 3,000-5,000 seaters on the whole? They would have sold out, and broken even a lot quicker than they did. Similarly when ABBA played Canada and the US in 1979, they chose 5,000 seater arenas but could have filled much bigger auditoriums.

 

[Harry]

I don't think Carpenters' audience would have liked being in some monster arena or stadium where views would have been challenged. Remember that in the 70s, giant TV screens weren't available so those that wanted to SEE the duo, and Karen in particular.

Also remember that Karen sang rather softly much of the time into her microphone and relied on amplification rather than belting her vocals.

The two indoor venues in the Philly area each held about 2500, give or take. The one indoor/outdoor venue could hold 14,000, but many of those would be out on the lawns at the rear and sides.

 

[John Tkacik]

In the "A Song For You" chapter in the Musical Legacy book, they did include the photo of Karen on stage at the Ohio State Fair with the caption saying Richard commented that their performance drew more than 50,000 attendees and it was the biggest crowd of their career.

 

[Portlander]

This topic has been an annoyance of mine for years and particularly directed at Sherwin Bash. But after taking the time to review their touring schedule during their hey day I've come to the conclusion that the venue selection was not as dire as I thought it was. For the most part and excluding stadiums, the Carpenters usually were booked at the largest indoor facility at a majority of the cities they performed.

In the early seventies, most small to mid sized cities had arenas with seating capacities in the 5,000 to 9,000 seat range. The larger cities typically had arenas that could accommodate anywhere from 10,000 to 16,000 non general admission with floor seats. Nowadays those same cities (NBA and NHL markets) have state of the art venues that seat in excess of 18,000 depending on the configuration.

The Carpenters performed in my home town of Portland back in October of 1973 and at the time the largest facility was the vintage Exposition Building which sat 3,500 and was sold out in a couple of hours. A few years later Portland opened a brand new Civic Center with 8,500 seats with ZZ Top as the inaugural act. But sadly, Karen and Richard never returned to Maine and their days of touring were coming to an end anyway due to health and personal issues.

What does still bother me with their concert schedule was the ridiculous amount of college campus gyms and field houses they appeared at. Include the 2,000 to 4,000 seat auditoriums they were booked at towards the end of their touring career which caused them to perform two shows on occasion in order to turn a profit and it's easy to understand their level of burnout from the road.

Their summers tours did very well at the outdoor amphitheaters like Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland, Pine Knob in Michigan, and the SPAC in Saratoga Springs, NY which all could accommodate between 8,000 to 12,000 including lawn seating.