Pop star Katy Perry struggles to sell tickets for her shows in several US states amid backlash over Blue Origin space flight
Pop star Katy Perry has struggled to sell tickets for her shows in several US states amid backlash over her Blue Origin space flight.
Perry, 40, kicked off her global The Lifetimes Tour in Mexico City on Wednesday, before the I Kissed A Girl hitmaker is set to perform in Texas.
However, official seat maps on Ticketmaster show rows of seats remain available at Perry's show in Texas on May 7, May 20, and May 21.
More than half of the seats at the 19,000-person capacity Toyota Center in Houston remain available for May 7.
The situation is even more dire at the Moody Centre in Austin on May 20, where almost all tickets are available at the venue's 16,223-person capacity.
Seats at Perry's May 21 show at the American Airlines Centre in Dallas also remain largely empty at the 20,000-person capacity venue.
The lowest-priced tickets at all three venues retail for about USD $59.50 (AUD $93.15), while the VIP packages cost upwards of $200.
Perry's May dates in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Denver, Colorado also show swathes of seats are still available.
The setback comes after Perry copped backlash when she safely returned to Earth last week from reaching space aboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin New Shepard rocket with an all-female crew.
Perry said the 11-minute mission was for "the benefit of Earth", kissing the planet's ground when she exited the craft after landing.
Despite the aerospace company's claim the "only byproduct of New Shepard's engine combustion is water vapour with no carbon emissions" during flight, University College London's Atmospheric Chemistry and Air Quality professor Eloise Marais said water vapour is a greenhouse gas that depletes the "ozone layer, and also forms clouds that affect climate".
Actress and model Emily Ratajkowski said she was "literally disgusted" Perry's space travel had effectively undermined the pop star's own cause.
"This is beyond parody. Saying that you care about Mother Earth, and you're going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that's single-handedly destroying the planet," Ratajkowski said on TikTok.
On Friday, a Perry insider said her team was concerned about the success of her ticket sales even before the space flight.
The insider said the Roar singer hoped to emulate the same success pop star Taylor Swift achieved with her record-breaking Eras world tour last year, but her chance was "pretty dismal".
"There were already concerns about poor ticket sales even before Blue Origin," they told DailyMail.com.
"They were pretty dismal. Katy truly believed her tour would take off like Taylor's.
"Some higher-ups at Live Nation were sceptical from the beginning. There are talks about what to do if the venues don't fill up further."
The development marks Perry's second major setback in her The Lifetimes Tour this week.
She took to Instagram on Tuesday to announce that her shows in the western Mexico city of Guadalajara on May 1 and 2 had been cancelled due to incomplete construction at the host stadium.
"Sadly, I learned that the construction of Arena Guadalajara will not be complete for their scheduled shows next week, which includes mine on May 1 and 2," she said.
"Last week, I sent my team to the Arena to make sure there wasn't anything we could do to make this happen, but it was evident when they arrived that the venue was not ready or safe to receive my show or an audience.
"I wish I could fix this, but it is beyond my control. You guys mean the world to me, and we have all been on such a beautiful journey together that I will be thinking about how I can create something special for the fans in Guadalajara in the future.
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