Backstreet Boys in Greensboro, NC - Confirmed Date

Back - Index - Submissions - - What is RSS? Date: Dec 04, 2099 Source: The Greensboro News-Record Submitted By: MAnetrella@aol.com The Backstreet Boys will perform Feb. 20 at the Greensboro Coliseum 12-3-99 By JERI ROWE, Staff Writer, News & Record (Greensboro, NC) Watch out for screaming teens and get ready to become ground zero, at least for a day: The big-money kings of bubble-gum pop, the Backstreet Boys, are coming to Greensboro. Tickets go on sale Dec. 11 for a Feb. 20 show at the Greensboro Coliseum. "It's the biggest tour right now," Scott Johnson, the coliseum's event and booking services director, said Thursday. "It's bigger than Ricky Martin. It's bigger than everybody. Everybody in the industry wants a Backstreet Boys date." And the Greensboro Coliseum got one. After months of calling, mailing letters and talking to promoters, coliseum officials are expected to announce today that they have grabbed one of the world's hottest tours. The group is what some music critics are calling the second coming of The Jackson Five. The Backstreet Boys sing about love and happiness. Pre-teens and teenagers, especially girls, the most influential group of the record-buying public, love their music. "It's kind of like the teeny bopper thing," says Erin Shroyer, a ninth-grader at Grimsley High School and a Backstreet Boys fan. "They talk about love and all that, and that's an interesting topic for teenage girls. "They're into that kind of stuff, and it's sweet that guys sing about it." The Backstreet Boys could be one of the coliseum's biggest shows in history, bigger in terms of economic impact than the groups that played during the coliseum's heyday -- bigger than Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin or The Grateful Dead. Judging from ticket sales at other venues, the show could sell out in one day. That hasn't happened at the coliseum since The Grateful Dead's stint there nine years ago. That's 22,000 tickets, the most that can be sold with the group's stage configuration. The coliseum's full capacity is 24,000. If the show does sell out, the group will become the coliseum's biggest moneymaker with a gross that could exceed $1 million, eclipsing The Eagles' record $920,000 gross from three years ago. All that bodes well for the Greensboro Coliseum, a three-building complex that in recent years has seen newer arenas and amphitheaters consistently draw bigger names away from Greensboro. "It's an extremely competitive environment out there," Johnson says. "But this sets us apart as one of the premiere facilities in the Southeast, to get a date like this." The Backstreet Boys will play four dates in the Southeast: Charlotte Feb. 17, Raleigh Feb. 18, Atlanta Feb. 20, and Greensboro Feb. 20, a Sunday, which falls a day before a school holiday. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. next Saturday and will cost $37.50 and $45. Tickets will be distributed through a ticket-line lottery, the coliseum's first lottery since The Grateful Dead show, to prevent anyone from camping out or scalping tickets. Here's how the lottery will work: At 9 a.m. at the coliseum's plaza box office, everyone will draw a number. That number will mark where everyone should get in line. Tickets also will be sold at all Ticketmaster outlets and online at www.ticketmaster.com. Johnson says he doesn't know if other Ticketmaster outlets will institute a ticket-line lottery. You can expect loads of fans to be there, fans like Amanda Blanton, a 12-year-old who at least 60 posters of Backstreet Boys in her room. "I waited in line for two hours to get tickets (in Charlotte) and they sold out," says Blanton, a sixth-grader at Mendenhall Middle School. "I just started crying. We really wanted to go so this time, I'm going to get there early because I really love their music. "They send out a positive message, they're cute and they've got great voices." Want to go? What: Backstreet Boys When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20 Where: Greensboro Coliseum Tickets: $45, $37.50 Information: 852-1100 Comment on this item. Recent Comments Submitted by: johnanz http://imrdsoacha.gov.co/silvitra-120mg-qrms Comment on this item. Next Item: Backstreet Boys Nominated in 26'th Annual People's Choice Awards Prev Item: Nominations Are in for the 1999 Teen.com Entertainment Awards