Shania Twain’s manager emailed a Vancouver music critic on Saturday to set the record straight about ticket sales.
Scott Rodger of Maverick Management took exception to Vancouver Sun writer Stuart Derdeyn’s observations about the crowd at Friday night’s show.
Derdeyn wrote: “Why was it so quiet outside at Rogers Arena … A ticket reseller confirmed sales were sluggish.” He also tweeted that “the crowd is thinner than expected.”
In an email Derdeyn shared online, Rodger denied sales were sluggish. “We all do our jobs to try and kill resellers ripping people off and it works,” he wrote. “We sold out 100% tonight. Wasn’t thin at all. We’re (sic) you actually here?? Tomorrow night we’re 98% sold. Not a sell out but I guarantee it will be tomorrow.”
Derdeyn admitted he “stands corrected” and “has to admit that the reason it was slow outside before Shania’s appearance on stage was likely because the vast majority of the audience was already in the building.”
He said the empty seats he saw around him “account for a smattering of the total attendance and people always shift around at gigs.”
Derdeyn said receiving an email from an artist’s manager was “a first in decades of music reviewing.”
Vancouver was the second stop on Twain’s Now Tour, which now heads to Edmonton for shows on Wednesday and Thursday followed by Saskatoon on May 12 and Winnipeg on May 13.
Twain returns to her native country on June 25 for a concert in Ottawa and then hits Montreal, Quebec City, Hamilton, London, and Toronto.
The Now Tour is Twain’s first since 2015’s Rock This Country Tour, which she vowed would be her last.