Fans hoping to catch Ulver on their upcoming west coast U.S. tour are out of luck, because the band just announced they’d been forced to cancel the dates.

Rather than come up with a fake excuse, Ulver were upfront about their reasoning: the lack of pre-sale tickets was troubling and they could not afford all the expenses of coming to the U.S. to play to empty venues. Here is their official explanation:

THE SWALLOWING OF PRIDE

We come bearing difficult news: after many frustrating phone calls and deliberations over this last week, we have decided to pull the plug on our upcoming US West Coast run. Modern media protocol suggests we trump up a reason, other than the depressing reality: pre-sales are too modest up against the rather big risk, given the size of the production and the venues.

We feel we just have to be honest about all this. We can not justify going through with all the things we need (flights, nightliner, backline, TM, tech, lasers, lights, and so on) in light of the poor prospects. It has left our promoters, booking agents, management, and now us, a bit baffled. Especially considering two full houses in NYC in March.

Despite our problems getting laser permits for those gigs, we think the trip turned out to be a success, and we would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who came to the Big Apple. Hopefully it will not be our last visit in the US.

Did we announce too soon after NYC? Should we have announced sooner? Maybe we waited altogether too many years, before finally making it across the pond? One can speculate, of course, but it doesn’t do much good at this point.

We feel it would be irresponsible to ignore the warnings and go over knowing that promoters (and us) will loose thousand upon thousands of dollars. Money is an absolute drag (except when you have it), but also a stone cold reality when it comes down to organizing these things. We have to take it into account, unfortunately.

We would like to apologize to all those who have already purchased tickets and who were looking forward to Ulver America pt. 2. Needless to say, your tickets will be refunded. Please know that this hurts us all. Visas have been obtained, paid and approved for everyone, some flights and other things have already been booked, pre-prod has been done and countless hours have gone into organization. It hurts even more since it is the second time in the US (third in our career) that we feel we have no other option than to cancel.

Finally, and most importantly, because we know many out there will be sorely disappointed: this decision was not made with a light heart.

We are very, very sorry.

Ulver, Oslo, May 8, 2019

Ulver made a lot of people happy when they played NYC earlier this year, so it’s a bummer to see they can’t recreate the magic for the west coast.