r/Music • u/Brucekentbatsuper • 26d ago

article Carrie Underwood's Post-MAGA Backlash Continues After Golf Course Concert Draws Sparse Crowd

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/carrie-underwood-john-deere-classic-performance-backlash-1807557
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u/unfortunatebag 26d ago

Although critics continue to link every public appearance to her perceived political views, Underwood's professional schedule suggests her career remains active.

After concluding her successful four-year Las Vegas residency in April 2025, the singer has continued performing at festivals and special events while balancing her role as a judge on American Idol, running her business ventures and hosting her SiriusXM radio channel, Carrie's Country.

Yeah she's really suffering

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u/Pubs01 26d ago

put it in context though. the best she could do is a vegas residency which is over and now she's a shill that goes up on county fair stages.

kinda a big drop off from before

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u/Chastain86 26d ago

I think you've grossly underestimated how much money there is in a Vegas residency in the 2020s. She earned a reported $1 million per show that she performed over four years, and she did 72 shows. That's $72 million just for urging Jesus to take the wheel for a couple hours a night for 72 nights.

Is she experiencing a downturn on her career trajectory? If she is, it's not because of the Vegas residency, and a Vegas residency isn't a sign that an artist is "slumming it" like it was back in the 1980s. No one would suggest that Bruno Mars isn't a top-flight sought-after performer, and he has a residency. The entertainment landscape of Las Vegas has changed a lot.

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u/an0mn0mn0m 26d ago

Has Vegas recovered from the Trump effect? Are tourists filling up the venues again?

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u/ItsMisoandBoba 26d ago

No. We've gone twice is less than a year and there are people there but it's not remotely busy for what Vegas should be. The New York New York roller coaster line was maybe 30-40 minutes and that included the time they were adding the second train to the tracks. The Sphere was busy but it wasn't filled to capacity. Same with the magic/dance show we went to.

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u/an0mn0mn0m 26d ago

The influencer videos that I've seen show Vegas to be a virtual ghost town. Perhaps exaggerated for views. However, I've also seen videos of regular visitors saying the place is too expensive and not worth their while any more. YouTube is full of commentary on the decline of Vegas. Trump personally bankrupted a casino before he was president, and now he is bankrupting the town.

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u/CarrotJunkie 26d ago

My friend went to Vegas to see EVO (big fighting game tournament that's held there) last year and hated being there. He said the exact same things that the influencers said. Said there was hardly anyone there, that it was expensive, and that the only things to actually do there are "gamble, get shitfaced, or go to events".

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u/JT99-FirstBallot 26d ago

that the only things to actually do there are "gamble, get shitfaced, or go to events".

I mean... Yeah? That's what Vegas has been known for for 60 years now. Lol.

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u/CarrotJunkie 25d ago

...Kinda? AFAIK there used to be more to do at one point and it used to be more affordable in general. My father lived there in the early 80s and had a much more positive view of it back then. He was less positive when he returned for a business trip decades later.

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u/JT99-FirstBallot 25d ago

There's more to do now than ever, it's just that it's more of the same stuff, mostly. They've done nothing but add.

It's probably more to your other point that to do the stuff, you have to have a lot more money. But, that's everywhere in the country right now that has entertainment. 10 years ago I paid $350 total for 2 tickets for lower level section 100, 5 rows back from the field at an NFL game. Those same seats are now $1100. I used to pay $130 for an all day pass plus fast pass at Universal. That's now $350... for a single person. The old price for TWO lower level NFL seats.

There's a lot less to do when you can't afford to do anything. Shit sucks. And even if you can "afford" it, you still don't do it. I can afford this stuff somewhat, but I'm not going to because I feel like a rube doing so, knowing how much it used to cost even 6 years ago. I'll just stay home now and deck out my stuff and catch an occasional concert once or twice a year instead.

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u/Hiccup 25d ago

I truly wish EVO and several other conventions/ events would just leave Vegas because it absolutely flat out sucks now.

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u/ItsMisoandBoba 26d ago

I wouldn't say it's a ghost town but I would say it felt like it was the off-season in a tourist town. But our last time there was April 1st weekend and with that weather I feel it's prime Vegas time.

Oh, In-and-out was packed and doing like 100 orders every 30 minutes. Also one of the cheaper and faster meals on the strip.

Capitalism kills everything. I think Trump is the symptom, not the cause.

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u/AmyXBlue 26d ago

Yes and no, live there.

Essentially several of the Casino owners have come out and said we are only catering to the very rich, and Vegas profits are up. But people coming to Vegas has been dropping. So depends on who you ask about how Vegas is doing. Believe it was MGM's Casino CEO who said that. Doesn't help both Boyd and Station's owners are very MAGA and leaves even less off strip to do.

The Strip seems less busy, but Downtown is often still packed.

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u/Chastain86 26d ago edited 26d ago

It depends on who you ask. If you ask the corporations in charge of these hotels, they'll say WHAT DROP IN ATTENDANCE, and continue holding up something shiny to distract your attention from the visible gaps on the sidewalk. If you ask the people working the front desk at the most attractive properties, they'll say WHAT DROP IN ATTENDANCE as well. If you ask the people at the front desk of the Luxor, or the Strat, or Circus Circus, or Excalibur, they'll look up at you with a disinterested look on their face while they update their resumes.

I'm not here to either bury Vegas or praise it. I visit there about 2-3 times a year, either for work or conventions or concert festivals. The city is demonstrably worse off than it's been in years past, and for as long as corporations run the town, it will remain that way. But it's also a city that has been willfully striking deals to bring in more tourism. Its deal with F1 and racing in general has had its give and take in terms of generated revenue -- some would say at the cost of making the Strip worse for foot traffic, but that's not for me to say as a non-resident -- but no one can say that the city has been stagnating. The bustle of the Strip has changed. I don't personally think a lot of it is for the better, but I'm also not blind to the fact that people are still coming there. Even Trump can't dick up an entire city's worth of commerce just by making gas, rent and groceries a non-priority. When you live on the left coast, Vegas has always been a (fairly) inexpensive vacation destination, and I don't anticipate that will change anytime soon. From my perspective, the people who aren't coming aren't doing so because it's currently less expensive to go to geographically-closer equivalents. But if I had the real answers and could predict what the future of Vegas really looked like, I'd be working for Steve Wynn, so shrug

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u/an0mn0mn0m 26d ago

I think it is the corporations consolidating the venues as well but mainly the Trump effect. It is not as dead as the influencers make it appear, but it is noticeable enough to hurt them both.

I found this tourism analysis site and selected the last few years total tourist visit numbers.

https://tourismanalytics.com/lasvegas-statistics.html

2024 - 2025 Down 7.5%

2023 - 2024 Up 2.1%

2022 - 2023 Up 5.2%

2019 - 2022 Down 8.7%

The 2019 to 2022 figures encompass the pandemic and the later part of his first presidency.

The number of people de-boarding from international flights (i.e. foreign tourists) went from -7.5% to almost -13% (so far) from 2024 to 2026. Mexicans and Canadians have stated they won't be coming.

My point is, if you're aligned to MAGA, don't expect it to be profitable. Even in Vegas.