Beyonce's Formation Tour Makes R1.4Billion in One Week | Said To Be Having Ticket Sales Problems

Could it be the days of the surprise album are over before they even began? Beyonce's PR tool of surprising people may be taking a chunk out of her concert attendance numbers. 

She's the undisputed queen of pop with her album Lemonade at number one on the Billboard 200, but Beyonce's latest string of concerts are reportedly far from selling out.

According to reports from the US, entire stadium sections on the Grammy winner's Formation World Tour have gone unsold, including at several shows in the coming fortnight.

That said, "Queen B" still sells. The Formation World Tour made $US100 million (thats about R1.5Billion) in its first week of sales, according to Billboard, with shows in New York and Los Angeles selling out in minutes.

Tickets to Beyonce's Formation World Tour went on sale months before the release of Lemonade. This move caused a few problems. Let's face it here; Beyonce was essentially asking people to blindly buy tickets to a tour with music they have not heard yet. BOLD. 

Sections of shows like this one in Minneapolis on May 23 are largely unfilled on Beyonce's Formation World Tour. Photo: Ticketmaster

Apparently entire rows are empty at the Arlington, Texas show on May 9, while only one of her two shows at London's Wembley Stadium is at capacity.

The 34-year-old made headlines last weekend when she cancelled a Nashville show, which her management blamed on construction at venue Nissan Stadium. But Nissan Stadium replied from their official Twitter account saying they had been ready to host the superstar.

"Nissan Stadium was ready and able to host the May 5 Beyonce show, and we look forward to the rescheduled event," they said.

The strange cancellation came just weeks after Live Nation Global Touring chairman Arthur Fogel had been touting ticket sales as "beyond fantastic".Of course that is to be expected, he is the chairman. 

"When you go up [on sale] and sell out stadiums, and in some markets multiple stadiums, it's big," he told Billboard, calling her marketing campaign "genius". The same Billboard article claimed more than 33,000 seats had been sold at the Nashville concert. 

Anyway, questions have arisen as to whether Beyonce's favoured method of releasing albums unannounced is backfiring. 

The singer unveiled the Formation World Tour during her Super Bowl 50 halftime show on February 7, but didn't release Lemonade until nearly three months later on April 23. This left just four days between the album's release and the tour's first show in Miami on April 25.

Yah neh, R1.5Billion in one week even when your shows are not selling out. Thats POWER.