Rolling Stones Abu Dhabi concert tickets sold out

Concert organisers announce that tickets for the Rolling Stones concert have sold out. Flash Entertainment said it was the country's 'biggest show' yet.

Tickets for the February 21 Rolking Stones concert have sold out. Reuters

The Rolling Stones have sold out their show at du Arena. The concert promoters Flash Entertainment confirmed the news today with more than 30,000 tickets sold for the February 21 concert.

Work has already begun to secure the legendary group for a second date. John Lickrish, the chief executive of Flash Entertainment, hailed the sold-out show as the country’s “biggest show” yet.

“We have surpassed the status of the George Michael show that we did at the National Stadium in Zayed Sports City in 2008,” he said. “It is also bigger than Madonna. This is the biggest commercial production that we have done.” Lickrish said requests have already been made for a second show. “As the demand has been so high, we are working on solutions that could include increasing the existing show’s capacity or even setting up another show,” he said.

”We talked about this when we first did the deal. We said ‘Let’s make a second show possible’ [and they said] let us get through the first show first. We looked at their schedule and it does look a little bit tough but we will do whatever we can.”

Regarding the possibility of late tickets being made available for the first show — as was the case with Madonna’s sell-out show at the same venue last June — it depends on the Rolling Stones’ production requirements.

“With Madonna, we rejigged the space with the production updates that we got and that opened up more tickets. But it was not something that we announced and we turned back to say it wasn’t sold out. Fortunately, when we did that show, there were some production holes that we were able to release. But when you are talking about production holes, it’s only about 1,000 tickets,” said Lickrish.

Lickrish expects an international crowd in attendance. “I can’t speak on the actual maths but I can tell you a few personal experiences where I spoke to people from the United States and the UK who are flying in to see the show,” he said. “We also have groups coming in from India and from GCC countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other places like Jordan.”

The Rolling Stones Abu Dhabi date kicks off their latest tour 14 ON FIRE, which will move on to Asia and Australia.

Rumours of an Abu Dhabi appearance by the legends sparked on November 30 when the The Rolling Stones Twitter account released the cheeky hashtag #GETWHATYOUNEEDUAE — a reference to their 1973 hit You Can't Always Get What You Want.

The news became official with tickets going on sale on December 9.

Tickets ranged from Dh395 for general admission to a whopping Dh3,995 for a special package including access to the Fire Pit at the front of the stage.