Somewhere around . . . 2003(?) I got to see Flock of Seagulls and Wang Chung together. It wasn’t on purpose; a friend who worked at an ampitheter was handing out lawn seats tickets since they had so many left over. Can anyone spot the reason why?
I’ve been to plenty of sparsely-attended club shows, but the most striking lack of audience was the end of Kanye West’s famous Bonnaroo set. It was scheduled to start at 2:45AM and actually started at 4:23AM. The lawn holds 100,000 and was about half-full when he was supposed to go on; about half of those had left by the time he actually started. I watched from a chair at the very back of the lawn and people were leaving in droves the entire time.
By the time he was finished at 5:30AM it was nearly broad daylight and I doubt there were 2500 people left. Still a lot of people, sure, but for such a huge act on such a huge set in front of such a huge lawn it looked deserted.
I was the only person in the theater when I saw A Haunting in Connecticut. I was more afraid of the possibility of someone sneaking into the theater and scaring me (at best) than I was of anything going on onscreen.
I’ve been to a few very sparsely-attended movies…
As a kid, my sister and I went with a friend to a matinee showing of one of the sequels to *The Pink Panther *(looking at IMDB, it was probably Revenge of the Pink Panther, in 1978). It was in a big, grand old movie theater in Green Bay, and there was only one other person in the audience besides the three of us.
A few years back, I played hooky from work one afternoon to see the Billy Bob Thornton movie The Astronaut Farmer, at a multiplex in downtown Chicago. I was the only person in the theater for most of the film – someone else came in partway through, and left again before the movie ended.
Two weeks ago, a theater in suburban Chicago was showing Star Trek (the 2009 version) on its IMAX screen. I think it wasn’t well-advertised; I was the only person in the huge theater until the last preview, when a group of four or five others showed up. It seemed like the IMAX sound was even louder when the theater wasn’t full of bodies. 
On occasion I’ll turn on the TV at home. I live alone, so usually when I’m watching a particular show, I’m literally the only person in the audience. If I get up to go to the bathroom or kitchen, there is absolutely no one in the audience. It always makes me feel sorry for the actors and commentators.
The Formula (1980)
Times Square (1980)
I was the only person in these movies for the first half or so, until I was joined by one other person.
The Apple (1980)
I didn’t actually get to see this movie. When I showed up at the box office several days into its run, the attendant told me that I was the first person who had shown up so far, that they had not shown it even once yet, would not be showing it that night, and probably wouldn’t be showing it at all.
The worst attended concert versus venue size I’ve ever been to was the Dropkick Murphys at the House of Blues a few years ago. The venue can fit well over 1000 people but the attendence was low enough that they closed the upper level (which they do occasionally), yet still there was plenty of space on the lower level to spread out. Still I think it was at least a fifth full.
But, during their closing song, they invited everyone on stage to sing their last song with them. And, everybody could have fit! There were more people on stage than in the audience. I decided not to get up there because the floor was less crowded than the stage: I was on the floor in like the third “row” of people and there was no one behind me.
My sister exhibiting one of her many random flights of fancy, decided to join the local, adult, acting troupe and insisted people come out to see the big show.
They put on some utterly stupid play (one by Neil Simon I think) in the cafeteria of an elementary school. As low-budget and amateurish as you can get with my sister reciting like, maybe two lines in total.
In the audience were me, my girlfriend and about six little old ladies who ate up every cornball line howling it up with laughter at every dippy sight gag while my girlfriend and I looked at each other with the mutual WTF? exchange.
In collage, my GF at the time and i went to a late (10:00 PM) movie, I don’t remember what it was, and WE were the only people in the theater. When we left even the lobby of the cineplex was deserted, so we had to unlock the front door and let ourselves out. it was actually kindA creepy.
I once saw a film on the last showing on a Tuesday night. I was a lone in the theatre. It was GREAT!
DoctorJ writes:
> It was scheduled to start at 2:45AM and actually started at 4:23AM. The lawn
> holds 100,000 and was about half-full when he was supposed to go on; about
> half of those had left by the time he actually started.
O.K., I’ll grant you that I’m out of it and not really familiar with such things. But what are you talking about here? What kind of concert venue has a lawn with seating for 100,000 people? What kind of venue with a lawn would start a show at 2:45 A.M.?
The weekend after I turned 18, I wanted to go watch an X-rated movie at the local cinema (this was before VCRs were commonplace). It was an uber-crappy softcore film. Or so the usherette told me, as she talked me into leaving so they could cancel the showing.
I performed with improv comedy groups for years and on more than a few occasions, we played shows where more people were onstage than in the audience. That sure impacted my enjoyment.
I went to go see Bob Saget do stand-up and the seats were maybe 20% filled. I kinda felt bad for him but worse for the guy he kept picking on.
I won tickets for Sparklehorse (RIP Mark Linkous) about ten years ago. It was an entirely seated concert and there were very few people there. IIRC it was less than half full. Although the show was excellent I bet it lost some people quite a few quid.
Bonnaroo. As he said in his post.
My introduction to Bela Fleck and the Flecktones was probably the smallest audience I’ve ever encountered (this includes my own shows back when I played bars). There were about 5 people in the audience not including me and my roommate.
The Flecktones absolutely killed. They played for about 2 hours and just rocked.
It is in the top 5 shows I’ve ever had the luck to see.
Slee
I watched Pine Knob empty by half when Harry Connick Jr. Proved he was more than another Tony Bennett performing in support of his jazz album, ‘She’. I loved it b/c I moved off the lawn into a seat but still felt bad for him as the grumpy wrinkle ranchers headed out.
Actually, that show was sold out. The audience just showed up late.
While I’ve been to several obscure movies where I was the only audience member, the most notable one for me was Schindler’s List before it won the Oscar. Though there were actually three of us in attendance - myself and an elderly couple whose best friends were Holocaust survivors.
Eyebrows of Doom writes:
> Bonnaroo. As he said in his post.
Thanks. I didn’t understand what DoctorJ was saying in his post. I assumed that Bonnaroo was a song or something. As I said, I’m not very familiar with concert venues. This actually strikes me as weirder than being the only person in a movie theater. I’ve been in lots of poorly attended small movie theaters, so the stories here about moviegoing don’t seem that strange to me. On the other hand, sitting on a huge field with 100,000 other people in the middle of the night to hear a concert strikes me as bizarre.
I did “Deathtrap” with a small theater group that was trying to get started up and they had great passion, but little organizational talent. The public relation guy quit early on during rehearsals and nobody thought to replace him.
So when we hit opening night we had a smattering of people in the house (mostly family and friends of cast and crew), but after that it was a disaster. One evening we had one person in a theater built for 300. After the performance, I suggested we could have just gone over to the woman’s house and performed it there, but she said it was a nice suggestion but her cat had gotten sick and the reason she came to the show was to get away from the smell.
We were on some sort of grant and thus had to do at least two weeks to get our money. Fortunately a journalist I knew came and did a pity piece on us, and we started getting small crowds in before we closed.