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Adele triumphs on Munich residency debut

Adele has launched her long-anticipated German residency to stellar reviews, with critics asking: “Is this the future of the big concert experience?”

The London singer is performing 10 nights at an 80,000-cap pop-up stadium at Munich Messe exhibition centre this month, with further dates to follow on 9-10, 14, 16, 23-24 and 30-31 August.

In a four-star review of Friday’s (2 August) opening show, Will Hodgkinson of The Times wrote: “Adele was met with hysterical cheers from fans who had come from all over Europe,” and suggested the model would serve as a template for other A-listers in the future.

“Rather than coming to the people in stadiums everywhere, will the world’s biggest artists expect us to catch a flight to see them in a specially built venue, dedicated to themselves, where they will remain as long as stamina, vocal issues and ticket sales allow?” he pondered. “The residency approach is common in the United States but rare in Europe. It suits a relative homebody like Adele, who has spoken in the past of her dislike of touring.”

The “bespoke” outdoor venue boasts a 220m x 30m LED screen – thought to be the largest screen ever assembled for an outdoor concert. Alongside the temporary stadium, a themed outdoor environment named Adele World includes an authentic English pub, a fairground wheel, karaoke, Farmers Markets, merchandise and a typical Bavarian beer garden with live entertainment.

The exclusive European concerts, which mark the first time Adele has played mainland Europe since 2016, are being co-promoted by Live Nation GSA’s Marek Lieberberg and Austrian promoter Klaus Leutgeb. Adele’s team, including manager Jonathan Dickins and agent Lucy Dickins, have been instrumental in shaping the project.

“Even the people in the cheap seats could feel up close and personal with Britain’s most relatable superstar”

“Yesterday marked the first of 10 nights in Adele World, a pop-up stadium-cum-festival in Munich complete with a pub modelled on one she went to in Kilburn before becoming a household name, a food court with the I Drink Wine bar, a 93-metre catwalk and a 220-metre-wide screen so huge, even the people in the cheap seats could feel up close and personal with Britain’s most relatable superstar,” added Hodgkinson.

Billboard, meanwhile, compiled a list of the 10 best moments from night one.

“Even in an era of over-the-top concert production, this was overwhelming,” wrote Robert Levine. “Rather than lean into that, though, Adele just remained her charming self. ‘What do you think of my screen?’ she asked the crowd at one point, as though she had just picked it up at a sale at Best Buy.

“After thanking the audience, as well as the promoters behind the show — ‘I’d only trust the Germans with this,”’ she said of the formidable logistics issues — Adele tore into a soaring cover of her most upbeat song. It was punctuated with more confetti, plus fireworks — not a quick burst of them, but a serious display. Most acts would have been buried under the sturm und drang, but Adele’s musicians and her voice seemed to go with it fine.

“By then, she had been moving, nervous, funny, touching and funny again. She was entitled to triumph and this was it.”

 


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€35 ‘Lucky Dip’ ticket offer for Adele Munich run

A limited number of €35 “Lucky Dip” tickets have been made available for Adele’s 10-night German residency, which begins this week.

Restricted to two per person, the tickets are being sold on a first come, first served basis and must be collected from the box office on the day of the show. They cannot be transferred or resold and the location of the ticket could be “anywhere from the back row to standing in the front”, and will not be allocated until the day of show.

According to Ticketmaster, “There are a very limited number of Lucky Dip tickets available each week, when they are gone, they are gone!”

The 36-year-old British singer will perform at a 74,000-cap pop-up stadium at Munich Messe exhibition centre on 2-3, 9-10, 14, 16, 23-24 and 30-31 August. The Lucky Dip allocation for the first two dates has already sold out, with further sales to take place on 5, 12, 19 & 26 August for two shows each week. The price points for the shows are otherwise set between €79 and €430.

The exclusive European dates will mark the first time Adele has played mainland Europe since 2016.

Live Nation GSA boss Marek Lieberberg, who is co-organising the run with Austrian promoter Klaus Leutgeb, recently told German media that the gigs were “95% sold out”.

“It is the most elaborate project in my 50 years in the music industry,” said Lieberberg.

While the overall costs have not been disclosed (estimates have exceeded €100 million), the residency will boast a 220m x 30m LED screen – thought to be the largest and priciest screen ever assembled for an outdoor concert. The “bespoke” outdoor venue will also host an “Adele experience” featuring an English pub, a covers band and stalls selling specially designed cocktails.

“Munich has excellent transport links and Munich has an incredibly enthusiastic audience”

Speaking to German broadcaster ZDF, the promoter elaborated on why Munich was selected as the host city.

“Munich is a city in Germany that combines modernity and tradition like no other,” he said. “Munich is a functioning metropolis. Munich has excellent transport links and Munich has an incredibly enthusiastic audience. Experience has shown that it is a metropolis that has the greatest interest in concerts, as we know from our decades of activity.”

Leutgeb, who has enlisted the help of renowned stage designer Florian Wieder, has previously organised shows at Munich Messe with artists including Andreas Gabalier, Helene Fischer and Robbie Williams in 2022.

“I have been in contact with management for two years; I had a vision that drove me forward,” Leutgeb previously told Krone. “I had to develop something very special, something that was 100 percent Adele.

“It’s a multifunctional arena, twice the size of a football stadium, with a diameter of 300 metres, the stage alone is 220 metres wide. But for me, it’s not about size or dimension. For me it’s about content, I want to realise my dreams and visions because that’s the only thing that makes me happy and I’m restless.”

Adele, who is represented by Lucy Dickins and Kirk Sommer at WME, announced she plans to take a hiatus from music upon the conclusion of her 100-night Weekends with Adele Las Vegas run at The Colosseum (cap. 4,100) at Caesars Palace is due to wrap up in November this year.

“My tank is quite empty from being on stage every weekend in Las Vegas,” she told ZDF. “I don’t have any plans for new music, at all. I want a big break after this and I think I want to do other creative things just for a little while.”

Adele is not the first A-list act to offer “Lucky Dip” tickets; the Rolling Stones have utilised the tactic in the past – most recently on their 2024 Hackney Diamonds tour – which had a limited number of tickets on sale for US$39.50.

 


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Austria’s Racino to host two new 60,000-cap events

Live Nation and Leutgeb Entertainment Group are hoping to establish a new 60,000-cap concert venue in Austria with two huge events this summer.

The promoters are teaming up to stage Rolling Loud Europe – 2024’s only European edition of the hip-hop festival franchise – at Racino open-air venue in Ebreichsdorf, Vienna from 5-7 July, marking the brand’s debut in the country.

Rolling Loud Europe will be headlined by Nicki Minaj, Playboi Carti and Travis Scott, with other acts to include Ice Spice, Offset, Shirin David, Gunna, Lil Tjay, Don Toliver and NLE Choppa, among others. Remaining weekend tickets cost €259.

The same venue will also host the one-day Racino Rocks, starring Metallica, backed by a supporting bill including Five Finger Death Punch, Ice Nine Kills and Mammoth WVH. General sale tickets cost €149.00 to €223.70. Punters also have the option of arriving onsite a day early for €25.

Speaking at a press conference, Live Nation’s Marek Lieberberg, André Lieberberg and Matthias Rotermund, and Austrian promoter Klaus Leutgeb declared that both events are expected to welcome 60,000 fans per day.

“We are extremely satisfied with the response,” said Live Nation GSA head Marek Lieberberg, as per Vorarlberg Online and oeticket.

Lieberberg said he was “very happy and proud” that Leutgeb had secured a year-round contract for the location, which he described as “one of the most beautiful festival grounds in Europe… embedded in nature, close to the metropolis of Vienna”, after a decade of working with Racino.

Moving forward, the promoters plan to organise smaller 5,000 to 10,000-cap events at the Racino each year, as well as larger concerts

“We are here to stay,” he added. “We are putting the metropolis of Vienna and its charisma at the centre. The visitors come from Vienna, will go back there and spend the night there.”

André Lieberberg noted that 50% of the visitors to Rolling Loud Europe will come from Austria along with a significant from southern Germany, while almost 1,000 tickets have been sold in the US so far.

Moving forward, the promoters plan to organise smaller 5,000 to 10,000-cap events at the Racino each year, as well as larger concerts for up to 60,000 attendees.

Launched in 2015, the Miami-hailing Rolling Loud has also run events in Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Sydney, Toronto, and is also plotting a debut event in Thailand for November this year. In Europe, most recently Rolling Loud has been staged in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, Portimão on Portugal’s Algarve and Munich, Germany.

Marek Lieberberg also played down reports that Rolling Loud’s 2023 German launch had been married by crowd trouble. Nine security staff were reportedly pelted by bottles and stones by festivalgoers on the event’s first day, as police described a “remarkably aggressive” mood among the audience.

“You should classify it,” Lieberberg told local media. “No people were hurt, no containers burned.”

 


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Leutgeb on co-promoting Adele’s Munich residency

Austrian promoter Klaus Leutgeb has spoken about co-promoting Adele’s 80,000-capacity residency in Munich, Germany.

The run was announced last Wednesday (31 January) as a four-date stint in August but a further four days were added due to “phenomenal demand”.

“I have been in contact with management for two years; I had a vision that drove me forward,” Leutgeb told Krone. “I had to develop something very special, something that was 100 percent Adele.”

The summer shows will take place in a “bespoke stadium” with a combination of grandstand seating and standing areas, based at convention centre Munich Messe.

“It’s a multifunctional arena, twice the size of a football stadium, with a diameter of 300 meters, the stage alone is 220 meters wide,” says Leutgeb, who has enlisted the help of renowned stage designer Florian Wieder.

“I had to develop something very special, something that was 100 percent Adele”

“But for me, it’s not about size or dimension. For me it’s about content, I want to realize my dreams and visions because that’s the only thing that makes me happy and I’m restless.”

The promoter, who has previously organised shows at Munich Messe with artists including Andreas Gabalier, Helene Fischer and Robbie Williams in 2022, will co-promote the shows with Marek Lieberberg of Live Nation GSA.

The exclusive European dates mark the first time Adele has performed in mainland Europe since 2016.

At the time of the announcement, Adele said: “I was too curious to not follow up and indulge in this idea, a one-off, bespoke pop-up stadium designed around whatever show I want to put on? Ohh!? Pretty much slap bang in the middle of Europe? In Munich? That’s a bit random, but still fabulous!”

The singer’s 100-night Weekends with Adele run at The Colosseum (cap. 4,100) at Caesars Palace is due to wrap up in June this year. The first 24 dates grossed US$52.8 million (€48.8m).

The 35-year-old star is represented by Lucy Dickins and Kirk Sommer at WME.

 


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