Metallica's not having a bad month at all. Despite their GRAMMYs performance not going exactly to plan, they got a ton of publicity out of it. The band played three huge shows in Mexico City and announced a huge summer stadium tour, with Avenged Sevenfold, Volbeat and Gojira.
And, it looks like ticket sales for that tour have propelled the band's new album, Hardwired… To Self-Destruct, to jump to #2 on the Billboard 200, up 209% – a huge leap, especially in an album's 15th week on the chart.
Billboard.com reports the jump is due to the band offering a free copy of the album with a ticket purchase to the summer tour, and those fans redeeming those purchases:
Metallica’s Hardwired… To Self-Destruct jumps from No. 14 to No. 2 on the new Billboard 200 with 81,000 units (up 191 percent) and 79,000 in album sales (up 209 percent). The gain is owed mostly to a concert ticket/album bundle sale redemption promotion with the band’s stadium tour that went on sale on Feb. 17. The trek launches on May 10 in Baltimore, Md., at M&T Bank Stadium. Redemptions of albums included with the purchase of a concert ticket register as a sale in the week the customer redeems/receives the album.
So all those ticket promos do end up making a difference when you're the biggest band in the world.
