George Solves Denmark’s Parken Problem

Having broken the venue’s attendance record by shifting 49,500 tickets, George Michael‘s November 11th performance seems to have been a major factor in overcoming the Copenhagen media’s reservations about Parken Stadium.

Even Politiken and Extra Bladet, which have been so critical of the national venue’s sound that it’s been nicknamed “Echo Valley,” were so fulsome in their praise of the superstar’s act that both papers are showing signs of having second thoughts about the place.

Erik Jensen even went as far as telling Politiken readers it’s Copenhagen’s best concert venue and certainly better than the city’s 10,000-capacity Forum.

Flemming Schmidt from Live Nation’s DKB Concertpromotion, which promoted Michael’s show and the U2 date that previously held the record of 49,200, said the improvement is due to the venue spending “a considerable amount” of money to remedy its reputation for poor acoustics.

Ticket selling records obviously depend on how the configuration of the production affects the capacity, but Michael’s still doing his best to break them by selling out all around Europe.

Even when he fails to sell out, he comes close. His October Scandinavian shows saw 9,416 turn up at the 10,299-capacity Gothenburg Scandinavium, 13,131 out of a possible 13,927 at Stockholm Globe, while the Oslo Spectrum show on October 19th sold all 7,740 tickets within an hour of going on sale.

Those three appearances and the Parken date sandwiched 10 sellout shows in German arenas that shifted 120,000 tickets total, a full house at Zurich Hallenstadion in Switzerland, three advance sellouts at Holland’s Rotterdam Ahoy and another at Belgium’s 15,500-cap Antwerp Sport Palais.

– John Gammon