Fans wait to get into the Iron Maiden concert at the Olympic Stadium in Athens on Saturday, May 23, 2026. [Nikos Mitroussias/InTIme News]
Tens of thousands of fans attended the opening Saturday in Athens of Iron Maiden’s new world tour, in the venue’s second major heavy metal concert of the year following US band Metallica.
State ERT television said Sunday that more than 50,000 people turned up to hear the British band at the Olympic Stadium in the first of its Run For Your Lives World Tour 2026 shows.
Iron Maiden will next be playing in Sofia, Bucharest and Bratislava, in what the band – formed in 1975 – has said is a busy year as there will be no shows in 2027.
Ahead of the tour, the group had urged fans to keep their phones in their pockets during concerts and suggested that people ignoring the appeal could be asked “very politely of course, to put their phone somewhere the sun doesn’t shine!”
