Features
Sticky & Sweet For Madonna
The second lap of
The sweetest taste of success came at Estonia’s Tallinn Song Festival Ground Aug. 4, where 75,000 turned out for a show co-promoted by Live Nation and Baltic Development Group. Two days later there was an 85,000 crowd for an LN show at Helsinki West Harbour in Finland.
Risto Juvonen, head of LN’s Helsinki office, is claiming it’s the biggest paid audience ever for any one show in Northern Europe.
BDG chief Peeter Rebane says the Tallinn show was the first time the 75,000-capacity Song Festival Ground sold out in advance.
So far Madge’s Scandinavian run – all promoted by LN – has been a sellout everywhere, shifting 40,000 per night at Oslo Vallehovin, Norway (July 28 and July 30) and 59,000 per night at Gothenburg Ullevi, Sweden (Aug. 8-9).
The Aug. 11 show at Denmark’s Copenhagen Parken Stadium was close to selling out on show day.
The going appears to have gotten sticky in The Balkans, where the Aug. 20 show in Slovenia has been pulled due to what’s being described as “logistical difficulties.”
Local media reports claim the real problem was poor ticket sales, with some suggesting only 7,000 of the 63,000 available were sold for Ljubljana Hippodrome.
Several quote Laszio Borsos, the managing director of Live Nation’s Budapest office, saying it has nothing to do with sales.
“The reason for the cancellation is unforeseen logistical difficulties. There is no problem with ticket sales, absolutely,” he said.
Tim Dowdall, LN’s central and eastern European chief, told Pollstar the ticket stories are nothing but “wild speculation and sheer invention.”
It’s the second European date Madonna’s been forced to scrap this time around, following the cancellation of her July 19 show in Marseille, France, after two workers were killed when the stage collapsed.