AS one of their biggest hits says, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Looking out over a half-filled arena on the last night of their UK tour last Tuesday, Boyzone must have wondered where the fans had gone, too.

The final show of their 19-date Better tour around the UK ended at the O2 arena in London. But with less than half of the 20,000-capacity venue occupied, it was more of a damp squib than a grand finale. The top tier of the arena was curtained off to hide unsold seating. There were also clusters of empty seats on the floor and level one.

It was all the more embarrassing because the band’s official fan club had e-mailed members days earlier offering free tickets for the gig. “The ‘boyz’ would like to thank their fans with an exclusive limited offer,” it read. “Buy one ticket, get one free.”

In their heyday, they sold 20m records, had 16 consecutive top five hits and packed out venues with screaming teenagers. No longer as youthful, or as plentiful, their fans can still scream during a two-hour set of crowd-pleasers such as No Matter What, Baby Can I Hold You Tonight? and Words.

The band also showed their energy and enthusiasm had not waned by being suspended on high wires above the crowd for the encore, much to the audience’s delight.

But the poor attendance at Tuesday’s concert wasn’t a one-off. The previous night was not a sell-out either. Their only date in Liverpool, at the Liverpool Echo Arena, was only half-full, and other venues had swathes of unfilled seats.

The band will perform at the Marquee in Cork tonight. The audience is likely to look as patchy, given the ready availability of tickets last week. On Wednesday an entire block of 36 seats could still be booked together for the show.

While the recession is one reason for poor ticket sales, industry commentators also blame the lack of new material from the quintet. This is their second tour in two years, and in that time only two new songs were added to their repertoire, one a cover version. Their comeback tour in 2008 was the 10th highest grossing of the year.

Gordon Masson, a contributing editor at Music Week, said: “It’s not really a surprise that they can’t go to the same places this year and sell out. It’s expecting a bit too much of the fans to say, ‘We’re back again, please come and see us'. You had a pent-up demand and they have not put out a new album. They are just going back and hitting the arenas again and people might think, ‘I spent all that money on them last year, I’m not going to go see them again this year because it’s the same material.’ It’s a difficult market in which to do the same tour every year.”

Boyzone aren’t the only performers struggling to fill venues. New Kids on the Block cancelled the Australian leg of their tour last week and there are still tickets available for Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet tour, although at up to £175 (€205) each, they are pricier than most concerts.

Masson said: “What I’m hearing from people is that bands that tend to go out on the road every year are struggling. Last year they may have been selling 80%-90% of their tickets; this year it tends to be 40%-50%. The A-list acts are still selling out arenas and stadiums but anything lower than that is struggling.”

One fan who saw an earlier Boyzone show in Manchester said: “The top tier of the arena was curtained off completely and the back three or four blocks of the lower tier were empty. I don’t think this is a reflection on the boys — I think this is the economic state of the UK. Most artists are struggling to sell tickets and fill arenas and stadiums. The show was fabulous.”

The band, which broke up in 2000, reunited in November 2007. Ronan Keating, who had enjoyed a successful solo career, was thought to be the reason the comeback took so long to happen. An Irish and UK tour for the following summer sold 200,000 tickets within three hours.

Jo Whitehead, the band’s publicist, said: “The boys are really thrilled that they’ve been able to come back and do an arena tour, sold out two of the biggest venues in London and had enough overflow to put on another show, even though it didn’t sell out. They were thrilled that they were able to record a couple of new songs and put out a greatest hits album.”

At The O2 on Tuesday, the group also emphasised that they would be returning with a new album next year, which would provide the footing for what Keating called “a new era, a brand new start”. But Keating is also working on a new solo record.

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