Guitarist Rob Baker responded to a fan on Twitter, saying that they were "sad and concerned" about the sellout. Members of the Hip also seemed to be displeased with how ticket sales went. Ticketmaster told The Canadian Press that roughly 1.3 million fans tried buy tickets during the public sale but only several hundred thousand seats were available.Įarlier this week, a new batch of tickets were made available after the band tweaked its stage design to accommodate more fans but those seats also sold out immediately.įans have been fuming about the exorbitant mark-ups on tickets being sold on secondary websites like StubHub and classified sites like Craigslist and Kijiji. The tour is expected to be the final one for the iconic Canadian band, given lead singer Gord Downie's battle with incurable brain cancer.ĭownie's medical condition was revealed by the band on May 24, and the Hip's tour was announced the next day.ĭemand for tickets has been overwhelming, with all 15 shows across Canada selling out almost instantly. The public broadcaster announced the program as the band released its 14th studio album, "Man Machine Poem," on Friday. Following the Junos tribute to Downie, his music also saw a 111% increase in digital streaming, according to Nielsen.įollowing his diagnosis, Downie dedicated his final days to advocating for Indigenous rights in Canada, releasing Secret Path and later receiving the Order of Canada for both his musical career and activism.įinding The Secret Path will air on Friday, October 12 at 9 p.m.TORONTO - The CBC will broadcast live the final stop of The Tragically Hip's upcoming tour, which ends in Kingston, Ont.ĬBC television, radio and online platforms will carry the concert on Aug. Last fall, shortly before Downie’s death, CTV commissioned a doc on the band, for which the trailer alone received 500,000 views on Twitter in its first weekend. It also saw more than 900,000 live streams. The August 2016 broadcast of the Hip’s final live show brought in an AMA of more than four million and reached 11.7 million Canadians in total, rivalling the number of viewers for the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Rio Olympics. Since Downie’s diagnosis with terminal brain cancer in 2016, Canadians have thrown their support behind the Hip – and related broadcasts – with enthusiasm. This is the third part of a Secret Path trilogy broadcast by CBC, which included Gord Downie’s Secret Path in Concert and The Secret Path – the animated version of a graphic novel illustrated by Jeff Lemire and accompanied by a 10-song album written by Downie, which tells the true story of Chanie Wenjack, an Indigenous boy who died after fleeing from a Northern Ontario residential school in 1966. The elder Downie also produced the film alongside producer Stuart Coxe.
The one-hour documentary, Finding the Secret Path, which shows Downie behind-the-scenes and in-concert alongside fellow Canadian musicians Kevin Drew, Kevin Hearn and Dave Hamelin, was written and directed by Downie’s eldest brother and filmmaker, Mike Downie. A CBC documentary following the final year of Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie’s life will premiere next week.