IRON MAIDEN Mania In Sweden, Finland And Colombia

When tickets went on sale yesterday morning for IRON MAIDEN's three stadium shows in Sweden and Finland the box offices were inundated and all 123,500 tickets were quickly sold out — over nine months in advance of the concert dates.

The two Swedish shows, July 16 at Stockholm Stadium and July 26 at Ullevi Stadium, Gothenburg, with respective capacities of 31,500 and 50,500, sold out in less than two and a half hours.

The show at the 41,500 capacity Helsinki Olympic Stadium on July 18 sold out in under two hours and further demand is so great that a further show has been added in Finland at the 30,000-capacity Ratina Stadium in Tampere on July 19. Tickets go on sale to the public this Friday 16 November at 9.00am, but special arrangements are being made for their fan club members to buy in advance at an exclusive pre-sale — more information to be found at www.ironmaiden.com

Says promoter Thomas Johansson of EMA Telstar: "We said when we announced this tour that is was the biggest Nordic tour by any rock band ever and that we wanted to ensure that as many fans as possible could get to see this amazing band. It's the first time any international artist of any description has played stadiums in both our major cities, Stockholm and Gothenburg, on the same tour — and even this wasn't enough to satisfy the huge demand. All the 82,000 tickets were gone less than two and a half hours in these cities! The same story in Finland with Helsinki Olympic Stadium selling out 41,500 tickets in even less time, and demand is still so high we have added a second stadium in Tampere. You must appreciate that Helsinki has a population of half a million so this is equivalent to selling out a dozen Wembley Stadiums before lunch. It just goes to show just how much people here love and respect this band. Their response to this tour and these ticket sales are truly phenomenal. We will just have to make the next stadium tour even bigger!!!"

Tickets also went on sale in Colombia and Phil Rodriguez, the promoter for the show at the 30,000 capacity Simon Bolivar Stadium in Bogota, stated that it was the fastest and biggest first day box office of any music event ever in Colombia: "Box office records were broken from the very start and MAIDEN mania is sweeping Colombia. We sold over 12,000 on just the first day. Nobody has ever done this, it's fantastic — this is usually a 'slow' market for ticket sales. But even though this is the first time the band have ever played here it does not particularly surprise us — MAIDEN are just huge in all of South America, the kids worship them. This is a massive event for the hordes of MAIDEN fans here."

Manager Rod Smallwood comments: "We are delighted by the incredible response of our fans worldwide to next year's tour. The reaction in Sweden and Finland is overwhelming, and also in Colombia, where we have never played before. Everywhere tickets have gone on sale so far we have had a tremendous response at the box office. Australia, where we haven't played for 15 years, opened up with nearly 45,000 tickets sold, with the large arenas in both Sydney and Melbourne selling out in less than half an hour and second shows added to both. Sales for Wacken, Germany's major metal festival, are at this stage well ahead of any previous year so at least 70,000 will certainly be there. And this last weekend we also opened up with major arena dates in Los Angeles, New Jersey and Toronto and between them fans snapped up over 25,000 tickets within hours of the box office opening. It seems that this has really caught the imagination of rock fans everywhere and we look forward to going on sale in many other countries very soon and getting back out on the road in India at the beginning of February."

On February 5, 2008 MAIDEN will release the hightly anticipated DVD of "Live after Death" and to tie in with this will play songs mainly from their classic '80s albums on this forthcoming tour. The stage production will also feature a production-based on the Egyptian-themed "Powerslave Tour" which was featured on the original 1985 video release of "Live after Death".