The Metallica and Elton John shows look to have grabbed the market by the Baltics. Peeter Rebane and Giedrius Klimasauskas both claimed their respective concerts have broken ticket-selling records.
The June 13th Metallica show that Rebane’s Baltic Development Group (BDG) put on at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds is said to have broken the region’s concert attendance record by pulling 75,000 paying punters. Klimasauskas and Makroconcert are claiming Lithuania’s “most tickets sold in a day” after shifting 10,000 within hours of the box office opening for Elton John’s September 1st performance at Vilnius Vingis Park.
The Baltic record for selling the most tickets in a day also looks to have fallen to BDG’s Metallica show, which was co-promoted by Sweden’s EMA Telstar and WellDone, its Finnish Live Nation partner.
The previous Baltic ticket-selling record was Michael Jackson’s 1997 show on the same site, which is reckoned to have done between 69,000 and 72,000 including staff and guests.
Tor Nielsen from EMA Telstar said it was the biggest concert audience he’s ever seen and the show certainly attracted a lot of interest in Tallinn. Estonian prime minister Andrus Ansip and city mayor Jyri Ratas both showed up for a meet-and-greet with the band before it went on stage.
Upcoming BDG shows include Sting in Tallinn Saku Suurhall July 28th, Latvia Riga Arena July 29th and Vilnius Siemens Arena in Lithuania July 30th. Simply Red plays the same Tallinn venue August 11th.
Makroconcert had just finished promoting Billy Idol at Latvia’s Riga Arena July 5th and the Lithuania’s Utenos Arena in Vilnius July 6, plus a four-day run for Buddy Guy June 27-30 in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.
– John Gammon