Watch: IRON MAIDEN Meets Bulgarian President Ahead Of Sofia Concert

Ahead of IRON MAIDEN's May 26 concert at Sofia, Bulgaria's Vasil Levski National Stadium, the British heavy metal legends met Bulgarian president Iliana Iotova, who described them as "remarkably down-to-earth people" and wished them many more years on stage.

Iotova later shared video of the meeting on her social media (see below) and wrote in an accompanying message: "It was a pleasure to welcome to Bulgaria the musicians from IRON MAIDEN. I am impressed that these metal legends and titans on the stage are extremely down-to-earth people. I wish them success at their concert in Sofia tonight and for many years on stage!"

IRON MAIDEN performed to more than 30,000 fans in Sofia as part of the band's "Run For Your Lives" 50th-anniversary tour. Following the concert, the band thanked fans with a Facebook post featuring images from the packed venue. As an additional highlight, fans attending the Sofia concert were able to visit the "Eddie's Official Pop-Up Dive Bar", which was set up at the stadium. It offered Trooper Beer, Darkest Red Wine, exclusive merchandise, and served as a meeting point before and after the performance.

IRON MAIDEN kicked off the 2026 leg of "Run For Your Lives" on May 23 at the Olympic Athletic Center of Athens (OAKA) in Athens, Greece.

Last October, MAIDEN announced the North American dates of their critically acclaimed "Run For Your Lives" world tour. In celebration of their 50th anniversary, the band will be performing at stadiums and major amphitheaters across the United States and Canada, allowing fans the chance to witness the brand new, state-of-the-art production, on the scale it is intended for — huge stages in outdoor venues, to accompany the setlist of songs from the band's groundbreaking first nine albums. They will also headline America's rock festival Louder Than Life at the Highland Festival Grounds in Kentucky on September 17, 2026.

The shows will mark 45 years since IRON MAIDEN first visited Canada and the USA on the 1981 "Killer" world tour, according to a press release, and "feature some of the biggest shows the band has ever played there."

Ahead of the "Run For Your Lives" tour's kick-off in May 2025, MAIDEN shared a message with fans, urging them to "severely limit the use of their phone cameras out of respect for the band and their fellow fans". MAIDEN has since announced that it will continue this policy for the 2026 legs of the tour.

Since forming in 1975, IRON MAIDEN has released classic albums like "The Number Of The Beast", "Powerslave" and "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son".

MAIDEN's most recent LP, the band's seventeenth, "Senjutsu", came out in 2021.

In December 2024, IRON MAIDEN played the final show of its "The Future Past Tour" at Allianz Parque in São Paulo, Brazil. That run of concerts was the last for longtime drummer Nicko McBrain, who has since been replaced by Simon Dawson, a former session drummer and MAIDEN bassist Steve Harris's rhythm section partner of the past 14 years with BRITISH LION.