Most of the tickets in Temecula, CA have sold, which is cool.
The fans are not coming in droves to support this album in the second cycle cities, which is too bad, because in the next round DT will be touring with a more diverse setlist and those Southern cities will get skipped again because of this current turn out.
If fans want the better setlists to come to their city in the future, then they gotta show support for the albums cycles that don't excite them as much. It's worth the investment.
That might be the reality, but it's not a fair way to look at it. I see this as a mistake on DT's part, and the end result will be exactly what you say and we'll get the blame. The promoters will be reticent to book them down here again, and based on what I've seen there's no way JP looks at this as a mistake on their part. In 2 years he's going to tell somebody who asks "well last time we toured down there nobody came out." If Metallica toured Lulu and sales were understandably poor, I don't think they'd hold that against the fans when it came time to tour for Bound to Explode or whatever their latest album is.
Idk.. All DT has to do is read the comment section on literally any post they make in regards to this tour. The same complaints keep coming up;
1) A lot of fans genuinely hate this album
2) A lot of fans liked it enough to see the show the first time they came around, but not the second
3) People want to see a rock concert and have fun. Not sit with their arms folded.
4) People really want to take pictures/video and can't
5) They selected venues that don't allow drinks in the seats.
6) Security escorts you out if they see your phone or if you're being too animated. This isn't a broadway show.
7) Many of the people that don't want to see it a second time, or haven't gone period, would likely go if there was 30-45 minutes of non-astonishing stuff at the end of the show.
Dream Theater can't rectify all of those things, but they could make good on a lot of them.