Genesis Turns Germany On

German promoter Peter Rieger Konzertagentur sold 40,000 Genesis tickets for Düsseldorf LTU-Arena so fast that the company had a second show on sale within a matter of days.

Although the fab three surviving members don’t start their reunion tour for more than another six months, PRK’s Stefan Güntner reported that 200,000 of the tickets for the eight arena dates went within a day.

The June 26th Düsseldorf show was soon up to 40,000 – expected to be a 45,000-capacity configuration – and the second show went on sale November 15th, five days after the Genesis box offices had opened.

Even before it had gone on sale, the overall ticket count had rocketed to 300,000, with every chance of hitting one-third of a million by the November 16-17 weekend.

The German run starts at Hamburg AOL Arena June 15th and, intertwined with dates in the neighboring mainland European countries, continues with Hannover AWD-Arena, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart’s Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion, Berlin’s Olympiastadion, Leipzig’s Zentralstadion, Frankfurt’s Commerzbank Arena and Munich’ Olympiastadion June 23rd through July 10th.

The ticket frenzy over what will be the first Genesis tour of any sort in 15 years has spread across the continent, with Flemming Schmidt of Live Nation’s DKB Concertpromotion seeing the 50,000 available for the June 14th show in Herning, Denmark, disappear in 40 minutes.

For Reigers’s office, the Genesis sales come on the back of success with shows from George Michael and Pink, part of European tours produced by the U.K.’s Marshall Arts.

Michael did 120,000 tickets across 10 sold-out arenas, while Pink’s 12 arena dates shifted 110,000.

– John Gammon