Iron Maiden have officially announced their upcoming 2016 tour for The Book Of Souls.
As sources reported earlier this summer, today is the day for big tour news! IronMaiden.com has announced that the world tour for Maiden’s new album, The Book Of Souls World Tour, kicks off in February 2016.
And it doesn’t look like they’re scaling down… On the contrary, this looks like it could very well be the band’s busiest tour since the 1980s…
Maiden will fly to six of seven continents, visiting 35 countries, in a customised Boeing 747-400 piloted by singer Bruce Dickinson. This plane is considerably bigger than the aircraft the band has previously toured with, and will be used for the entirety of the tour.
Details of countries, cities and dates TBA, but here are the basics:
Tour starts in the USA in February!
It then hits Central and South America in March!
Then North America in March and April!
In April and May the band will be flying to Japan, China, New Zealand and Australia, and also hit South Africa.
Finally, Europe will see an extensive tour from late May to early August.
Check out the press release for more!
Maiden Revelations 
This is exciting! I assume it means all territories will get a full show, which is great news. My only problem is, with Europe coming last, my chances of avoiding the setlist ’til I get to see them are zero…
Anyway, given Bruce’s tumour, and the band’s age, the fact that we’re getting a double album of new material and a full world tour, flying round the world in a 747(!), proves that Maiden is the most creatively ambitious and hard-working longstanding band in the world.
All territories will at least get the SAME show, but here’s the catch: The plane is much bigger, but they are not converting it. Last time they enlarged the cargo area, because they had to. This time they don’t have to. Which means that the cargo area of this unconverted plane is almost exactly the same size as the converted hold of the previous plane.
However, the press release indicates that the European tour will only start with the plane. I assume that means they are making some long hauls at the start of the leg and then going conventional for the rest of it. This could mean an enhanced production for most of the European leg.
The other thing it could mean is that places like Israel might finally see Maiden again because of the plane being involved. Would make sense to start far south in Europe, maybe even the Middle-East, since they are coming in from South Africa.
May – August sounds like festival season for Europe. I hope that doesn’t mean just Donnington or Reading in the UK and there are some arena gigs too.
USA up first! Any location in the New England area will do, Mass, RI, or Connecticut. Gonna be my first time seeing them! I can’t wait!
Awesome! 🙂
Come to think of it, since this plane can take only marginally more cargo than the previous one, this is for sure: We’ll have an entire world tour without a big Eddie behind Nicko.
I would not expect any pyro either. So this will be a big step down from the production of the Maiden England tour. Unless the band and designers and crew can be really creative and still make something awesome out of it, but we all know this isn’t their strong point.
Inflatable Eddie? Didn’t they do that for SIT and FotD? Not as good as a physical model though.
True. That could be a solution. They also did it for Virtual XI, which was a complete stinker of an Eddie. Will be plenty of chances for some Spinal Tap fuck-ups if they do this. 😀
(The FOTD Eddie was just inflatable hands though, the head was solid.)
As long as Eddie still shows up during Iron Maiden, I don’t really care if there isn’t a giant one behind the drum set. I can imagine the stage will have a sort of Mayan pyramid/jungle backdrop, sorta like the one on the Metal Hammer cover. I think that’d be cool.
This might be Iron Maidens best lp.a double cd three lp book set. These guys are at the top of the ” rock” mountain. Book of Souls is incredible.
Gotta agree. It doesn’t feel like 92 minutes. Even though there’s plenty of long songs, there’s enough going on that they never drag. Can’t wait to hear some of these songs live.