Fact #141381

Steve Dagger (manager, Spandau Ballet) : In 1990, Spandau Ballet had split up, and when we were looking at bringing the band back twenty years later, I wanted to find an agent to represent them who would understand the potential of a band who, although they’d been away twenty years, I believed could do incredible business with tickets, because they’d always been a great live act. A lot of people wouldn’t have the vision to understand that something could be repeated twenty years later, but talking to John Giddings of the Solo Agency, I could tell that he shared my vision, which not a lot of people did. People were not convinced that this band could come back and sell out O2s and NECs and do extraordinary business.

I spoke to a lot of people but John was the only one who really understood the potential, if it was handled in the right way. When I said to him in 2008 that I thought Spandau could do three nights at the O2, he agreed with me. A lot of other people questioned whether they could do one! So when we brought them back in 2009, John and Danny Betesh promoted the UK tour, and it was a huge success. John also represented the band as their agent in the rest of the world.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Audience magazine, April 2016)