The five listening experiences Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign hosted for their collaborative album Vultures 1 have grossed the pair over $12 million in ticket sales.
Per Billboard, early revenue estimates for the listening events—starting with the Chicago event on Feb. 8 and concluding with the Paris event on Feb. 25—look impressive. The first two events, which were hosted in the United States before the two flew to Europe for two shows in Italy and one in France, brought in approximately $2.4 million in ticket sales each. The sales figures for the listening party events in Europe are unavailable, but all shows sold out and the tickets were similarly priced between $140 to $220.
While the stripped-back events saw Ye and Ty perform alongside various album collaborators, including Freddie Gibbs among others, the multi-hyphenate originally had other ideas in mind.
According to insiders who worked on the production of the shows, Ye originally wanted to perform on a giant pile of sand alongside Ty. The production team was Jam Concerts, a Chicago-based company. The team highlighted that the 35x35-foot pile of sand wouldn't be able to support the speaker monitors, so the idea was ultimately vetoed. Additionally, another source said the events held in the United States, which were the only two to be hosted before the album came out, were incredibly rushed. They both went down just 72 hours after they were officially announced.
Despite the problematic rollout of Vultures 1—a long-delayed record marred in controversy due to Ye's anti-Semitic comments—has now spent two weeks at the top spot of the Billboard 200 albums chart. It's Ye's first album to sit at the top spot for multiple weeks since the Jay-Z collaborative album, Watch the Throne.
