A rock band's worst nightmare would have to be no one coming to any of their shows. And yet Threatin has purposefully done just that for his European tour.
Jered Threatin, the namesake of the 'band', booked multiple venues for a tour across Europe, on the strength of his number of Facebook likes, views on his YouTube videos, and assurances of advanced tickets sold. However, all these stats are easily bought or faked. At a show the band was scheduled to play in Bristol, they claimed over 180 advanced tickets were sold.
Come show time, the venue was empty.
If this happened once, it might be some kind of weird fluke. Yet it is the recurring story for this band's tour. At a show in Birmingham, one ticket was sold. In London, only three tickets were sold to people there to see the opening band.
And it's not like these arrangements are cheap. The band has to cover initial fees to pay the staff for the venue. Someone had to buy those fake Facebook likes and Instagram followers. Threatin's band is made of himself and for-hire musicians.
It all has a very "Tommy Wiseau" feel to it.
No one can tell for certain why Threatin has done this. Was it for publicity? As soon as the story broke, he started cancelling shows and put his social media accounts on private. Was it purely for a prank? If so, that's a lot of money to throw at a strange joke no one gets.
Bare minimum, he's won the respect of the internet.
The strangest part of this saga is that there are now people genuinely interested in Threatin. He could easily cash in on his popularity, or find new ways to iterate the joke. Whatever the reason for all this effort, it seems Threatin got what he wanted.
The booking manager for Underworld, a venue in Camden, Jon Vyner, spoke about Threatin playing to an empty audience.
"The most remarkable thing is that it didn't seem to bother Threatin. He seemed quite happy to give it his all without an audience."
Maybe he just really loves music!
H/T: Consequence of Sound, AV Club, BBC News
