Attendance figures

[axeman_12656]

Feb. 13th 1982 Rupp Arena - Lexington, KY

I have looked around. Does anyone know the attendance of this show?

Rupp Arena is kind of my home area. Just curious how it did.

It would be interesting to see the diary tour attendance. Were the houses packed or half full? they were doing big arenas... hard to fill them up. I know Rupp Arena holds almost 24,000. So does Freedom Hall in Knoxville, TN.

[Axeman1956]

Judging the popularity of Ozzy at this time, I'd say the place had to be pretty full. But I don't know. I'm just giving a possible based on Ozzy's popularity.

[halo8th]

it was kind of odd at those Diary shows. Some arena's had a pretty full crowd, while other venues were barely half full, if that.

[distortionplus]

Memphis April 1982 post accident attendence was close to a sell out. Only a 12,000 seat arena. Gillis was a poor substitute for the real thing. The whole concert I was bummed. That concert is not even high on my list of favorites.

[axeman_12656]

Memphis April 1982 post accident attendence was close to a sell out. Only a 12,000 seat arena. Gillis was a poor substitute for the real thing. The whole concert I was bummed. That concert is not even high on my list of favorites.

Most of us have heard this concert. It was live on the radio and copies have been sold for 25 years now. My copy was called THE AXEMAN COMETH. Was suppose to be Randy when I bought it.

I enjoy the show myself.

[distortionplus]

What I meant was that the show was not a favorite of mine compared to others I have been to see. Guess my favorite show ever was AC/DC "For Those About to Rock" tour or Rush "Moving Pictures" tour. I like Brad Gillis don't get me wrong. His playing on Speak of the Devil is really good. I just was not into seeing anyone else doing Randy's stuff at the time.

[TAB]

when I saw the tour Feb 2,82 in Pittsburgh it was at the big arena where The Beatles, Elvis, Led Zep all the big acts play but they pulled the stage out to almost center of the arena, it was a massive stage so they needed extra room anyway. It was a packed house as far as available seats so I am guessing there round 8000. Most big arenas were the same setup. The bigger cities had more buzz about the records so they played the big venues. The remote areas they played the b stage shows I figure probably 3000 people approx. Those days they played as many places as they could big or small just to get Ozzy out there.

[AndrewT1976]

I'd be curious to know if any of the Diary shows were a bust. Meaning, they only had like 500 people there.

I remember reading something about the Crazy Nights tour for Kiss, and there were some nights they only did about 1,000 people in an arena that held 5,000-8,000. That must have been really weird for them to see.

[Trigger]

The 1981 show in Providence had a tiny audience but if you listen to the boot from it, the band saound amazing and the audience seem to be going wild! all 10 of them!!!!!

[Axeman1956]

The 1981 show in Providence had a tiny audience but if you listen to the boot from it, the band saound amazing and the audience seem to be going wild! all 10 of them!!!!!

Your comment is making me laugh lol. It really is hard to believe that such a small audience showed up. I got to say, that bootleg is probably the best one I've heard, both Quality and Band wise, behind the Cardiff and Cleveland '81 show.

... Lol, 10 people....

[AndrewT1976]

10 people???? Seriously????

[Axeman1956]

10 people???? Seriously????

No. He is just loling lol...

[TAB]

Yea Kiss's popularity just plummeted after Unmasked and The Elder and once Ace was gone. They knew they had to take the makeup off for any kind of continued success. They pretty much were starting all over again and were playing the small venues not filling the houses. They were hurtin, I rmember them coming to town and had not interest in seeing them, but in 77-79 I saw them in a packed Civic Arena same place I saw Randy.

With Ozzy I am sure shows on the Blizzard tour would have had smaller crowds since Crazy Train and I Don't Know were just hitting the airwaves and they played a lot of really small towns on that tour. It was just to get Ozzy's name out there actually the opposite of today, the tour was to help promote record sales. In PA I have a friend that saw the Blizzard tour at the Stanley theater, he said it was a great show and was normal attendance far as he could tell. I almost went to that one as well as the guitar seminar... ahh. arg... Only going by the crowds in the Diary photos, seems by 82 in the big forums were pretty good. The Diary album was just taking off, especially since they didn't sell the tickets from the side of the stage to the back areas made it look larger croweds in the front. The B stage would have been the place to see him, man you could have had no problem standing in front of Randy.