Two months ago, when comedian Matt Rife announced his ProbleMATTic World Tour with Live Nation, he moved around 600,000 tickets over the span of just 48 hours, experiencing the culmination of 12 long years on the road.
Remarkably, this was just the artist presale, with Rife ultimately going on to sell 720,000+ tickets to 300 shows, including eight back-to-back at the Chicago Theatre, six at Radio City Music Hall, and four at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut.
A 27-year-old from North Lewisburg, Ohio, Rife had as recently as the summer prior struggled to sell even a hundred tickets a show, though not for lack of hustle. Perhaps the best encapsulation of his determination to succeed came a few months following the emergence of Covid, when he and comedian friend Paul Elia launched Lowkey Outside. A semimonthly, socially distanced comedy show, spun off from one they’d done at The Comedy Store pre-pandemic, Lowkey saw the pair performing for small crowds from the bed of a pick-up truck, in the back of apartment complexes and event spaces across Los Angeles. The duo put their blood, sweat and tears into these shows, not to mention their own funds, and they never generated much money, even as they attracted a range of A-list comics suddenly in need of a place to perform.
See full article at Deadline Film + TV
