Elton Busts Box Office Records

Sir Elton John’s shows at Arena Riga in Latvia and Tallinn Saku Suurhall in Estonia broke both venues’ box office records, according to promoter Baltic Development Group.

The shows were arranged in cahoots with Tor Nielsen from Sweden’s Live Nation-EMA Telstar, which had done the veteran British rocker’s summer shows in small Scandinavian soccer stadiums in Malmo, Odense, Fredrikstad and Kristiansand.

The September 14 show in Riga, where new Latvian president Valdis Zatlers was among the audience, grossed US$ 771,917. The following night’s show at Tallinn Saku Suurhall brought in US$723,432.

Helen Sildna from BDG said other acts have sold as many as the 10,376 that he did in Riga and the 8,033 he did in Tallinn, but the grosses beat records previously held by Sting in Riga and Phil Collins in Tallinn, which were also promoted by BDG.