Claymates Attend Multiple Clay Aiken Concerts this Summer

A few months ago, Team Clay announced Clay Aiken’s summer concerts at his Official Fanclub with this:

http://clayonline.com/index.php?news_page=10

“03/02/07 : Tour News Alert!
By Team Clay

Clay Aiken summer 2007 touring plans are close to being confirmed with dates that start in July all across the U.S. Keep your eyes peeled to clayonline.com for show announcements in the coming days, along with on sale and fan club presale information. Get your oil changed, and calculate those frequent flier miles...the summer tour will be here before you know it!”

As the announcement implied, Clay’s concert schedule was specifically designed to take advantage of the Claymates’ unusual history for attending multiple concerts on the same tour, a behavior that has escalated dramatically over the years.

In fact, Quiana Parler, Clay’s backup singer on his tours, has remarked on the repeat concertgoers on Clay’s tours, in this interview with ClayNationNews (CNN).

http://www.claynationnews.com/quianaparler-interview.html

“CNN: Do you guys really have as much fun as you seem to on stage? It looks like you're having a blast.

Q: We are. And more.

The funniest thing to me is to see the same faces, night after night, in every single city. But it's a good thing to have the love. How do you afford to do that? Is there a secret we don't know about? ”

There is a thread on the Clayboard tallying the number and location of concerts that members are attending.

http://p071.ezboard.com/ftheclayboardfrm11.showMessageRange?topicID=90624.topic&start=1&stop=20

As of yesterday, there are 347 Claymates who have posted the concerts they are attending (total 1,177), and the average number of concerts/Claymate is 3.4. Over 80% of members are going to 2 or more concerts. Over 50% are going to 3 or more concerts. Here is the breakdown:

# concerts ... # Claymates .. %

1 .......................... 99 ............ 28.5%

2 ......................... 68 ............ 19.6%

3 ......................... 69 ............. 19.9%

4 ......................... 73 .............. 21.0%

5 ......................... 16 ............... 4.6%

6 ......................... 16 ............... 4.6%

7 ......................... 4 ................. 1.2%

8 ......................... 3 ................. 0.9%

9 ......................... 4 .................. 1.2%

10 ....................... 4 ................... 1.2%

11 ........................ 6 ................... 1.7%

12 ........................ 1 ................... 0.3%

13 ........................ 1 ................... 0.3%

16 ........................ 3 ................... 0.9%


More interesting is that the concert locations and dates have been intentionally scheduled to accommodate multiple concertgoing. This marketing strategy is working very well on the Claymates, as a total of 70% are attending these grouped concerts (at least 2 concerts of a group, often more than one group of concerts).

http://clayonline.com/tours.html

Groups of 3-4 concerts are scheduled on successive days and are all within 1 to 4 hours’ drive from one location to the next.

Group of concerts ...................................... # of Claymates

Syracuse/Canandaigua/Chautauqua .................. 51 (14.7%)

San Diego/Pala/Los Angeles/Indio ................... 55 (15.9%)

Cary/Asheville/Knoxville ............................... 79 (22.8%)

Ft. Myers/Tampa/W. Palm Beach/Orlando .......... 57 (16.4%)

If this trend can be applied to the rest of the Claymates, roughly estimating that there are 5,000 Internet Claymates who will attend an average of 3.4 concerts this summer, then they will account for around 17,000 concert tickets, or over 12,000 in excess tickets. Exactly how Clay planned and predicted. Still, as of yesterday, none of Clay’s concerts are sold out, even small venues ranging from 1,600 to 2,500, and some of these are noticeably undersold. This, despite many of these concerts being part of summer subscription series of the various symphonies, where Clay is a guest performer. The Claymates are tracking ticket sales here:

http://www.theclackhouse.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4302&sid=d93d7f0a67006e8a8a715a2df8b43cd0

So, not only are Clay’s CD sales padded with multiple buying, online polls and awards spammed, but his ticket sales are also padded and encouraged by Clay with his concert scheduling. Clay Aiken continues a marketing strategy to pursue a career based on false perceptions and statistics. Obviously, he doesn’t care, but it’s becoming more and more evident to everyone other than the Claymates.