Guns N’ Roses Adds Europe, Festivals

Guns N’ Roses’ mammoth “Not In This Lifetime Tour” has been extended to (at least) summer 2018, with European summer dates including festivals taking Axl, Slash and Duff into the end of July. 

Cliff Yeo for LAMC Productions – Slash and Axl Rose of Guns N
Guns N’ Roses visits Changi Exhibition Centre in Singapore Feb. 25.

Presales for the new dates, which run from June 3 at Olympiastadion in Berlin to July 21 in Gothenburg, Sweden, begin Monday Nov. 13, with the public onsale Nov. 16.

Festivals on the routing include Download Festival UK June 9, Firenze Rocks in Italy June 15, Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium June 21, and Download Spain June 29.

Other new European dates include Dyrskuepladsen in Denmark June 6, Veltins Arena in Germany June 12, Matmut Stadium in France June 26, Estadio Olympico in Spain July 1 and Otkritie Arena in Moscow July 13.

The first leg of the “Not In This Lifetime Tour” kicked off way back in April 1, 2016, with a warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, and has been a monster on the road for the band once known for late starts and erratic behavior by frontman Axl Rose. 

The tour sold 900,903 tickets just from July 1 to Sept. 30 of this year, according to Pollstar data, with an average gross of $3.47 million and total gross of $90.48 million. 

Highlights included 48,740 tickets sold to U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, good for a gross of $5.56 million. Other notable dates include Aug. 30 at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta, which sold 44,393 tickets ($4.76 million gross), Aug. 8 at Marlins Park in Miami (37,834, $4.1 million), and Sept. 8 at the Alamodome in San Antonio (38,490, $3.85 million).

The GNR tour stretches into the end of November, ending at the Forum in Inglewood on Nov. 29.

For Year End 2016, Guns N’ Roses were No. 4 on Pollstar’s Top 100 Worldwide Tours feature, with just under 1.7 million tickets sold, an average gross of $5.3 million, and average tickets sold of 48,490 per event. Average ticket price was $111.