Live Nation (MCD in Belfast) is proud to welcome rock legends IRON MAIDEN back to the UK in 2011 for an extensive 10 city arena tour for the final run of dates on their FINAL FRONTIER WORLD TOUR 2010/11. For the first time in many years, the band will be playing shows across the full length and breadth of the UK, including places they’ve not visited for up to three decades! The dates for The Final Frontier UK Tour 2011 are:

JULY
Wed 20 Scotland, Glasgow SECC
Thu 21 Scotland, Aberdeen AECC P&J Arena
Sat 23 England, Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
Sun 24 England, Sheffield Motorpoint Arena
Wed 27 England, Nottingham Trent FM Arena
Thu 28 England, Manchester MEN Arena
Sun 31 England, Birmingham NIA

AUGUST
Mon 1 Wales, Cardiff CIA Arena
Wed 3 Northern Ireland, Belfast Odyssey
Fri 5 England, London 02 Arena

Maiden founder member Steve Harris comments; “Everything in the Maiden camp has been so full on these last five years or so that we haven’t travelled around the UK to play for our home fans for almost that long. These fans supported us by coming to Twickenham Stadium, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Download and more recently Sonisphere so we thought we should get off our backsides and do the travelling this time and get round the country to see them all. We very much look forward to playing all four home countries and a couple of places we haven’t been for a very long time, Aberdeen and Belfast! And playing the O2 gets us as close to the East End of London where Maiden started off than we have been for many a year, probably since the Ruskin Arms! All in all l think this is going to be a very special series of shows and a wonderful way to end this whole world tour.

“We intend to take the full stadium show into the UK arenas and fit everything we possibly can into each venue. The set list will be different to this year’s tour. Of course we will play more songs from the new album and some other recent material, but we intend to include a healthy dose of older fan favourites too for those who haven’t seen us before , plus a spectacular light show and stage set, not forgetting, of course, ….Eddie!”

The UK shows will be the culmination of The Final Frontier World Tour, which began in June 2010 with a hugely successful 25 date tour throughout North America, followed by selected European stadium and festival shows, including Knebworth, Sonisphere in the UK.

The band recently announced the first leg of the 2011 tour which starts in February and will be ‘Around The World In 66 Days’ – a fifty thousand mile odyssey aboard a specially customized Boeing 757 – Ed Force One, piloted by airline captain and lead singer Bruce Dickinson. This will carry band, crew and many tons of equipment across 5 continents to thirteen countries, visiting 26 cities for 29 shows

The first show will be on Feb 11th in Moscow’s Olympic Stadium, after which the Boeing 757, which will have new designs to tie in with the new album and tour, will fly the band to Singapore and Indonesia for Maiden’s first ever shows there, before arriving in Australia to headline two arena dates and five Soundwave Festivals. EF1 then turns its attention briefly to the Northern Hemisphere with a first show ever in South Korea and two shows in Tokyo, before heading all the way across the Pacific, a journey which (believe it or not!) is 6660 miles, for two shows in Mexico. An extensive series of stadium shows through five South American countries follows, and, via Puerto Rico, the band will play the final show on this leg of the tour in Tampa, Florida, USA on April 17th, exactly 66 days after Moscow! (full dates below)
Says Bruce, “We were taken aback by the fantastic reaction from everyone to EF1 during the 2008/09 World Tour. As our fans all know from the “Flight 666” film, which documented the trials and tribulations we underwent in order to get the whole project literally off the ground, the end result was well worth all the effort and complex logistics we had to deal with! The band and crew enjoyed themselves so much travelling that way, it seemed only logical to set up this part of The Final Frontier tour in the same way so we could get to see as many fans as possible all over the World, only this time we’re pushing the boundaries even further and going to more places Maiden has never been before… in true Frontier style!! We very much look forward to playing in Singapore, Indonesia and South Korea for the first time, as well as revisiting our fans elsewhere.”
This Around The World tour will be followed by an extensive series of European dates starting late Spring. Nordic and Russian shows have already been announced (as below) and there are many more dates to follow, before Maiden comes home to the UK in July. It will be an historic return for a number of reasons, not least as it will be the first time the band has played in Aberdeen since their first UK headline tour back in 1980! And although the band played earlier this year in the Republic Of Ireland at Dublin’s O2 Arena, it was 1993 when they last performed in Belfast, so shows in these cities are well overdue! The last show of the tour will see Maiden’s first ever performance at London’s O2 Arena.

The Final Frontier World Tour is in conjunction with the band’s 15th studio album released in August through EMI Music and their most successful chart album to date, registering the #1 sales chart slot in 28 countries around the globe; from Lebanon, Arabia and India in the East, to Canada in the West, New Zealand down South, throughout UK and Europe and across Latin America, as well as reaching No.1 in Billboard’s European, Tastemaker and Rock Charts, and No.4 in the USA, which is the band’s highest position ever there.

Wherever possible, members of the Iron Maiden Fan Club will get the opportunity to win The First To The Barrier competition where 60 lucky members (plus a guest each) get the chance to enter the venue before the general public and grab themselves a prime viewing position right by the front of the stage barrier.

As well as competition entry to ‘First to The Barrier’ access on show day, there will be an exclusive first ticket pre-sale for Iron Maiden Fan club members, before tickets go on sale to the general public on Saturday November 20th. Information on this special pre-sale will be posted on www.ironmaiden.com