Madonna's lucky star fades as tour sales slump

When Madonna kicked off her last UK tour at the peak of her powers, her fans were offering four-figure sums for a pair of seats.

Three years on, as the singer began her latest round of shows at Manchester's MEN Arena last night, she seemed to have lost some of her sparkle. Tickets were failing to meet even their face value as sellers cut their losses to take what they could as they traded on the online auction site eBay.

One pair of seats for her London shows on the Reinvention Tour later this month, which had originally cost more than £300, raised just £140 at the close of bidding, and a number of tickets for last night's show failed to attract a single bid. Some sellers had posted messages on the website to say they were resigned to making a loss on someone who was once of the world's biggest box-office draws.

Tickets were also still available at the box office for some of her shows. However, a spokeswoman for the singer said that was due to extra capacity becoming available as the venues finalised their staging requirements.

Sales for the pop queen's shows got off to a good start, although it is thought many buyers simply may have been snapping up tickets for re-sale following the clamour to see her Drowned World tour in 2001 for which tickets were changing hands for £600 each.

Those shows - like all Madonna performances, more of a visual spectacular than a gig - were her first major dates for eight years and followed two acclaimed albums, Ray of Light and Music, which once again made her one of the coolest stars on the planet.

But her latest dates are on the back of a flop, the critically panned American Life album.

Touts outside the shows in Manchester and London's Earl's Court and Wembley Arena venues were expected to get far less than the actual cost of £75 to £160 for seats.

BBC Radio 2 presenter Paul Gambaccini believed the poor reception for last year's album was the root cause of the lack of interest.

He said: "In popular music no one is as dead as someone who is recently dead, and Madonna has just had her first stiff album. It might have had a high chart entry but it disappeared quickly. There will come a time when she will sell out quickly again but that is because people will be viewing her in the context of her historic career achievements. They are currently viewing her in the light of the album's failure.

"I'm not bothering to see her. I saw her on the Vogue tour. I know I've seen her at her peak so why see her flogging a dead horse?"