Donald Trump Set For Lucrative History Tour, Despite Shows Not Selling Out

Despite limited publicity and tickets not selling as fast as expected, Donald Trump's upcoming tour with Bill O'Reilly's could already be considered a success as a money making scheme alone.

The former president and the ex-Fox news host will kick off their four-date "History Tour" on Saturday at the FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Florida before moving onto the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday.

The tour will then visit the Texas at the Toyota Center in Houston and the American Airlines Center in Dallas on December 18 and 19 respectively.

Just days before the tour was due to kick off, Newsweek found tickets for all four events were still widely available, with both venues in Florida having more than 1,000 tickets being sold online.

However, the ones that have sold went for a minimum of $100 each, with VIP and premium tickets going for several thousand dollars.

In July, following early reports that the tour was not selling well, O'Reilly and Trump's spokesperson Liz Harrington said in separate statements the events had already generated between $5 million and $7 million in revenue.

"There obviously is a monetary component for both Trump and O'Reilly, "Joshua Scacco, an Associate Professor of Political Communication at the University of South Florida, told Newsweek.

"This is a way of raising money, either for a campaign and political gain, and or personal gain."

The tour is also a change of direction for Trump. While president, he prided himself on being able to attract tens of thousands of people to his rallies, albeit where the tickets were free.

In the year since he left office, Trump has held rallies in Iowa and Georgia as he continually teases a run for president again in 2024.

Trump has also not shied away from the media and has constantly given interviews to right-wing media outlets for the past several months where he has continued to pushed false claims that he lost the last election due to widespread voter fraud.

Even after he was banned from all major social media platforms, it is still relatively easy to find out what Trump wants to say at any one time. Which leads to the question—who exactly is paying upwards of $100 to hear him talk?

"We have to be thinking about the type of person who would be more likely to go to this event," Scacco said. "Someone who is a type of political activist, they raise money, they campaign, they are already engaged. They're really not necessarily going to have more than one kind of reaction other than excitement for a Donald Trump event.

"He's picked Florida and Texas, two places that are very important in terms of raising money for a Republican candidate, and also two very GOP friendly places, as opposed to going to a place such as California," Scacco added.

"They're picking from the audiences in friendly places where they can also raise money. So that's base politics, it's a form of keeping yourself relevant, and trying to gain some sort of attention."

With regards to the venue not selling out, Scacco admitted that while "the optics" of empty seats may not look good for Trump, it is too too early to suggest this could hamper his 2024 plans.

"This is December, it's the holiday season right before Christmas, a year out from the next set of major elections in the United States, three years out from the next presidential election," he said.

"Not only that, the branding of it as 'The History Tour' might not necessarily be something that's instantly attractive to some audiences."

Scacco added the tour is yet another way for Trump of "keeping up the speculation" of whether he will run for president again.

"If he decides to run for President again, he will need to potentially compete in a Republican primary with other candidates. So he needs to continue to show his relevance to that base, and continue to make his case to that base."