Here Comes KISS; Rockers Unveil Second North American Leg

Jen Rosenstein – KISS
End Of The Road

KISS is saying goodbye with a bang! The band has announced another month of dates in North America as part of its End Of The Road farewell tour.

The new dates start Aug. 6 in Sunrise, Fla.’s BB&T Center and run across the U.S., ending Sept. 16 at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. There are two Canadian dates in the month-long routing: Aug. 16 in Montreal and Aug. 17 in Toronto.

Tickets for a KISS Meet & Greet Experience go on sale Nov. 27 at 10 a.m. local time. The KISS Army fan club gets a presale beginning Nov. 28 at 9 a.m. The general onsale begins Dec. 3 at 10 a.m.

The announcement of the tour initially came after a performance of Detroit Rock City on the season finale of “America’s Got Talent” Sept. 19.

This is not the first time KISS has said goodbye, as the group did a farewell tour with its original lineup in the early 2000s, but Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons decided to keep the moniker and act alive afterwards. In 2000, when the farewell tour was in full swing, the group reported 1,292,121 tickets and a total gross of more than $61.6 million, seriously huge business at a time when ticket prices were nowhere near where they can get now. Pollstar has record of 127 shows that year, and for most of that run KISS kept prices between $35 and $85.

The latest announcement of a farewell tour presumably means that Stanley and Simmons are done, meaning the KISS Army will no longer be marching into arenas around the world.

KISS has been a touring powerhouse over the years, and came in at No. 79 on the 2016 Year End Top 200 North American Tours chart, with a $15.4 million gross and 233,262 tickets on the year.          

The Hottest Band In The Land still does plenty of live performances, as KISS reported 10,770 tickets sold to a show at WiZink Center in Madrid July 8, with Megadeth supporting, for a gross of $2.37 million. Domestically, KISS grossed $377,407 off 5,677 tickets last year for a show at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas.

Longtime KISS manager Doc McGhee recently ended his business partnership with his brother Scott McGhee, and said professional and personal objectives made the creation of Scott’s own company the next logical step.

Doc McGhee added, “Scott loves to break new artists and work with new artists, and the whole thing is, I think in order to do a really great job for somebody, you need to have the time to do it,” said McGhee, whose company has operated for 40 years and with current clients being KISS, Ted Nugent, Vintage Trouble, Caleb Johnson and Jesse Jane McParland.

The second leg of dates is listed below:

August 6 – Sunrise, FL @ BB&T Center
August 8 – Charleston, N.C. @ North Charleston Coliseum
August 10 – Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion
August 11 – Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
August 13 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater
August 14 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
August 16 – Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
August 17 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
August 20 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
August 21 – Hershey, PA @ HersheyPark Stadium
August 23 – Darien Center, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheater
August 24 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
August 27 – Syracuse, NY @ St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview
August 29 – Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center
August 31 – Indianapolis, IN @ Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center
September 1 – St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
September 3 – Des Moines, IA @ Wells Fargo Arena
September 5 – Little Rock, AR @ Verizon Arena
September 7 – Bossier City, LA @ CenturyLink Center
September 8 – San Antonio, TX @ AT&T Center
September 9 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
September 11 – Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater
September 12 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
September 14 – Salt Lake City, UT @ USANA Amphitheatre
September 16 – Oakland, CA @ Oracle Arena