Attn. Nostalgia Artists – You’re Going to Have to Do Some Press

While driving up I-95 recently I saw a giant billboard advertising Jessica Simpson performing at Foxwoods casino on December 7th. What struck me as a bit strange was that this was the first time I’d become aware of the concert even though I live in CT, and I’ve been writing about music for the past 25 years.

Jessica Simpson isn’t exactly a small name, she’s sold over 30 million albums worldwide, so why didn’t I know about the show?

Just for the heck of it I decided to check to see how much tickets were, and how sales were going. When I saw the venue map on Ticketmaster I was a bit surprised.

Not only were there tickets priced at a shade under $40 – if you don’t mind sitting way back – as of a week ago (which is when I’m writing this) there were plenty of seats available in the 4,000 person capacity venue. Just check out the map. The blue areas are where you could still find seats.

The Jonas Brothers had similar ticket sales issues this summer, which caused them to move some of their stadium shows to smaller arenas rather than play to a crowd that might resemble a Miami Marlins home game.

Come to think of it, perhaps the JoBros interrupted a World Series game this year just so they could perform at a sold out stadium.

Why are such big name nostalgia acts failing to draw?

It isn’t because they’ve lost all their fans. It’s that they haven’t given their fans a reason to care.

Sometimes the stars align, like when Aqua, of “Barbie Girl” fame, discovered they could sell out shows in 2023 on the strength of being associated with the Barbie movie.

If, however, you don’t have a pop culture juggernaut like that behind you, or a major album anniversary to celebrate, you’re going to have to work to create some excitement. This is especially true if, like Jessica Simpson, you’re expecting fans to hand over an additional fee of nearly $300 for a VIP meet and greet.

How can these artists create excitement? One way would be to go to back to the old days, and do some press … actually, a lot of press.

I know some people may think – these major artists have millions of followers on social media, they can just get the word out that way.

That, however, is not how social media works. Case in point, Jessica Simpson has 5.4 million followers on X (formerly Twitter), and as of the writing of this article a pinned post from September 19th announcing her tour has just 68k views. That means just 1.26% of her followers saw the post … and she’s a verified account!

A trend that’s become popular for many known artists (and their publicists) when it come to the press is to just do a one-off interview with a name outlet, or a daytime talk show, to promote a tour, or a new project, but that clearly isn’t working.

Nostalgia artists need to flood the market to get people excited again, and to remind fans of feeling connected to their music.

When a plethora of ‘90s bands started doing nostalgia tours together this is exactly what they did. I know because I was able to book interviews with Mark McGrath, Dive Pirner, Max Collins, and Art Alexakis with no problem whatsoever, and they were thrilled to talk about their history, and the tour.

They did this even though they had the added advantage of having four different fan bases to draw from for their tours, since they had four band bills, which is something else artists like Jessica Simpson, and acts like the Jonas Brothers might want to think about.

When an artist sits down for an interview, each writer will (or at least should) ask different questions, which means each interview will have a different headline, and different quotes to draw people’s attention. Each time attention is drawn, the reader is reminded about the tour.

The repetition of this is like the repetition of hearing a song on the radio. In the scenario with the radio, eventually you start to like the song, and in the case of the articles, eventually a person says – maybe this would be a fun night out.

Now is this article about how nostalgia artists should do more press a bit self-serving on my part?

Absolutely.

I miss the days of every touring artist doing a bevy of interviews. It was good for the writers, and, as we’re seeing now, it was also pretty advantageous for the artists, as well.

Sometimes the old ways still have merit, and I believe this is one of those times.