Kevin Spacey show in Denmark sells only a few tickets a day

Ticket sales for American actor Kevin Spacey’s show at Falkonersalen in Copenhagen have slowed sharply, with only two or three tickets now being sold per day, DR reports. The event is scheduled for 28 November.

The organiser has sold 120 tickets since sales began in June, while sales stopped entirely in July. The show is being promoted as an evening in which the House of Cards actor will sing iconic songs and tell stories.

“Yes, it has slowed down a bit now. I do not know why,” said Ganna Voronych, who works for the Ukrainian ticket platform Karabas in Denmark and handled the booking.

She speculated that the holiday period could have affected sales. Tickets cost between 590 and 2,190 kroner, and the first 100 were sold “extremely quickly”, according to Voronych. The organisers hope to sell about 1,600 tickets.

Asked whether the allegations against Spacey could be affecting demand, Voronych said the issue had been discussed to some extent on social media.

“We think that if he is free from court cases, why can he not simply come and have a good concert, talk to people, tell some good stories about himself and sing a little?” she said.

The 67-year-old actor is known for Oscar-winning performances in films including The Usual Suspects and American Beauty. He was dismissed from the Netflix series House of Cards in 2017 after being accused of sexual assault, allegations he has denied.

In 2023, Spacey was acquitted in a case in which he had been accused of sexually assaulting four men while he was artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London. He pleaded not guilty. In March this year, he reached a settlement with three men in Britain who had sued him over alleged sexual assaults between 2000 and 2013. Spacey has denied the allegations, according to the BBC.

Jacob Ludvigsen, a film editor at Soundvenue who has written about Spacey’s upcoming performance, said the ticket sales suggested that booking the show had not been a successful decision.

“Ticket sales are speaking clearly right now, and that is that it does not seem to have been a particularly good idea to accept this show, which relatively few countries in the world have welcomed and which is Kevin Spacey’s attempt to crawl towards a comeback,” he said.

Ludvigsen said sales could still improve, but that a weak start could make that difficult. He suggested that Danish audiences did not find it especially appealing to watch Spacey perform jazz and tell stories from his childhood and Hollywood life.

He also said consumers deserved credit for possibly recognising what he described as a desperate attempt by Spacey to raise money. Spacey has spoken about experiencing serious financial problems in recent years and has not returned to Hollywood after the allegations.

Ludvigsen said he would not necessarily call the show morally unacceptable, since Spacey has not been convicted in court over any of the allegations. However, he said it could be seen as “a little bit in bad taste”.

He also said he understood the attempt at a comeback, pointing to comedian Louis C.K., who performed in Denmark after facing allegations of sexual misconduct and drew a large audience. In some cases, Ludvigsen said, there had been a core audience willing to look past allegations concerning stars’ private lives.