According to Chile’s La Tercera newspaper Iron Maiden is the biggest foreign concert draw ever in Chile, with a total of 226.000 tickets sold for the 7 shows the band has played there since 1996.

On October 2nd Iron Maiden finished their massive Maiden England 2013 World Tour in front of an audience of 60.105 spectators at the national stadium Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile. An interesting turn of events considering Maiden were banned by the Church from playing in Chile in 1992, according to the band’s official site.

Last week the Chilean newspaper La Tercera reported that Iron Maiden is the biggest international concert draw in Chile ever with a total of 226.000 tickets sold for their 7 shows in the country. Maiden are snubbing massive acts like U2 (212.000), Roger Waters (195.000) and Madonna (182.000) from the number one spot on the list.

The Maiden England World Tour is a celebration of the band’s glorious 1980s period, with a particular focus on the Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son album and tour. And the Chileans simply went crazy for yet another round of Maiden greatness!

– Because we were banned in the ’90s, people have felt a very strong connection to us. And we have always brought great shows with us and worked hard not to disappoint the audience, frontman Bruce Dickinson told La Tercera outside the Sheraton Hotel before leaving for the gig.

DRESSED FOR SUCCESS
Iron Maiden first played in Santiago in 1996, then fronted by singer Blaze Bayley. The show attracted 18.000 concert goers and included this infamous “Blaze gets mad” version of The Trooper:

Since then it has steadily been going uphill for the heavy metal veterans, eventually leading the band to film their latest concert DVD En Vivo! at the Estadio Nacional in 2011, one of the many audience-driven concert films in the band’s long career.

CROWD CRAZINESS
When the band came back for a second show in Santiago on the Somewhere Back in Time Tour in 2009, it sold out three months in advance. The riot police had to be called out due to some fans causing havoc on the race track, Club Hipico, where a stunning 55.000 people came to see the show. Excerpt from Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood‘s diary:

At some point, I don’t know who alerted them, but from the corner of my right eye I saw four Carabineros – the riot police – coming along the front of the stage from the right, with the helmets and the visors and the sticks…. One of them went past  our security guys and as soon as these hundred wankers saw them, they ran.

And here is some audience action from the same gig courtesy of IMTV 2009. See if you can hear Bruce!

MAIDEN ENGLAND IN NUMBERS
The Maiden England World Tour 2013 has visited 25 countries since the kick-off in Bilbao in May this year. Here are some stats from tour production manager Patrick Ledwith:

“Since rehearsals started 131 days ago with 1 Band and 102 crew, there have been 46 Shows, 1,175,714 Maiden fans, 45,350 miles travelled, 44 cities in 25 different countries on 3 continents, 3,853 hotel rooms, 71,579 lbs of air freight, 2,576 stage hands, 350 lighting fixtures, 330 sets of guitar strings, 2,000 picks, 184 drums sticks, 600 rolls of gaffer, 400 rolls of over tape, 598 tanks of CO2 gas, 278 tanks of propane, 3,380 dinners, 96 cheese wheels, 5,646 bottles of Trooper beer, hundreds of miles walked by Hackers…and we have made it to the end of another tour.”

Source: ironmaiden.com