It was only a matter of time before Gaga announced the dates of the European leg of the ARTRAVE: ARTPOP Ball. According to Pollstar, the last show in North America is on July 21st, 2014 in Los Angeles at the Staples Center. The European leg picks up in Merksem, Belgium on September 23rd, giving her a two month break in between legs. During that break, Gaga will disappear into a wooded area, sit on a rock (naked) and chant like a monk with a flaming ember shoved up his butt, to centre herself and calm her mind after the disastrous, poorly sold North American leg.
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
The ARTPOP Ball is 9 dates shorter than the Born This Way Ball. Here's the BTW Ball's dates.
ARTPOP Ball dates according to Wikipedia:
Several cities from the BTW Ball aren't on the ARTRAVE schedule, like Sofia, Bucharest and Riga. Some of ARTRAVE's venues match the BTW Ball's venues, such as Vienna, Zurich and Barcelona. Others are downgrades, like Paris and London. Twickenham Stadium in London holds a capacity of 82,000; while O2 holds up to 20,000. That's a big difference. Same with Paris. Stade de France holds 81,338 while Zénith de Paris holds 6,293. Wow! What is going on Gaga? She's doing two dates in Paris at the same venue for ARTRAVE and that still won't match the Stade de France on one day.
What's happening here is obvious. Gaga downgraded from mega-stadiums to arenas and other smaller venues. Either because she completely missed the target the first time around and overestimated what she could sell or she's losing fans and popularity and she knows it. She's removed her one foot from fantasy land and placed it back in reality land and adjusted her tour schedule accordingly. It's the same trick restaurants use when they use a smaller plate to make the portions look bigger. The North American tour dates aren't doing that great so far. Could that be mirroring what will happen in Europe? Folks, I think we're officially on FlopWatch2014.
