Trans-Siberian Orchestra Changes Performance, Ticket Sales Still Rise

After the Trans-Siberian Orchestra spent thirteen years with their rock opera "Christmas Eve and Other Stories", last year, they finally changed their spotlighted story to "The Lost Christmas Eve" last year. Even though they refused to talk about it last year, leader Paul O'Neill finally opened up about the change this year.

According to The Morning Call, O'Neill revealed to them that everyone was against the change. He said that the change was initially brought up in 2008, but their agent said that with the economy being as it was, it was the worst time to change.

The issue, said O'Neill, was that "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" became so well known, it started to be a tradition among people to go see in November and December. It was a safe production. However, O'Neill painted this as a parallel to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Story". The story became so famous that whenever Dickens attempted to change what he would read, they would always just want "A Christmas Story."

As a result of this, O'Neill went ahead with the change to "The Lost Christmas Eve", and waited for the consequences in ticket sales. However, that consequence never came, and their ticket sales rose twelve percent as a result.

This year, they went even further, and took a mix of songs for the second half of the show, which will come from "Christmas Eve and Other Stories," "The Christmas Attic" (the second installment in the holiday trilogy), the 2012 five-song holiday EP, "Dreams of Fireflies (On A Christmas Night)," and even Trans-Siberian's non-Christmas rock operas.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra, whose phenomena has grown year after year, has played over 1,500 shows for more than 10 million fans in the past fifteen years, and quietly became one of the world's biggest arena rock acts. The unprecedented fan driven growth is a testament to TSO founder Paul O'Neill's vision of "Rock Theater," the perfect amalgamation of Broadway storytelling with the spectacle of rock, delighting audiences of all ages year after year.

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