Dubai: Stones fans, your time is up — tickets to their debut Abu Dhabi gig on February 21 are officially sold out.
But a dim flicker of hope remains for those who left their purchase to the last minute: CEO of Flash Entertainment John Lickrish told tabloid! on Sunday that they are in talks with the band to add another UAE date.
“I’m very relieved that I don’t have to worry about selling more tickets, unless of course I get the guys to agree to a second show, which we’re currently working on,” said Lickrish.
“There’s a low possibility. We talked about it earlier and the schedule they have… but it’s something we should consider. If it were a week before, I wouldn’t be bothering, but since it’s three weeks away, I think it’s worth the effort to see if we can.”
The second show, if secured, would be around the same date of the first gig. As it stands, February 21 seats in the 31,500 capacity du Arena venue — costing between Dh395 and Dh3.995 each — have been snapped up.
In Lickrish’s experience, sales happen in two big bursts — when the tickets are first put on sale, and again when the date of the show is nearing, though sales are more immediate now that promoters have switched to electronic platforms and people don’t have to plan their days around queuing for hardcopy tickets.
“We sold out of the grandstand in the first week or so, early entry packages. We sold out [general admission] about a week ago, and it was just the last couple of high price [sections left], which is always the late buyers, who can justify spending a little more money, who tend to do that a little bit later.”
Promoters tend to stagger the release of tickets to deter scalpers — that is, people who buy tickets in advance only to re-sell them at the venue for a profit. Lickrish said that scalping, and the problem of fake tickets, has waned in the UAE. He was expecting sales to go on until the last minute, but the batch they released over the course of this weekend went fast.
“Even with Justin Timberlake and Black Sabbath, those sold very, very well, and we’re expecting both of those to be all sold-out as well — not anytime soon, but definitely before the show.”
