Yea, I think that strategy works because whichever artist it was just books a smaller venue. Most cities only have 1 venue that could do a concert as big as what Taylor Swift does. If you're operating in the 1k capacity space though you can easily just broker between 2-3 venues in most towns and play at different spaces around other already-booked shows if needed. If you're competing against the NFL or whatever for space, it's a whole different story.
The issue that you run into with the "just keep adding dates" is less that you're stuck somewhere for 10 days, but more that instead of your tour being a tight 2-3 months and you're done, there's not really anything that stops your 10 city tour from taking 10 months if people keep buying the tickets.
> there's not really anything that stops your 10 city tour from taking 10 months if people keep buying the tickets.
Yeah, but some artists actually do like to tour. And its where they make the most money, since record sales aren't really a thing anymore. Even when they were, I think touring was still the bigger moneymaker for most acts.
The issue that you run into with the "just keep adding dates" is less that you're stuck somewhere for 10 days, but more that instead of your tour being a tight 2-3 months and you're done, there's not really anything that stops your 10 city tour from taking 10 months if people keep buying the tickets.