Fact #76943
When:
Short story:
On their Abba : The Tour tour, Abba play the first of two nights at Bingley Hall, Stafford, England, UK, Europe.Full article:
Danny Betesh (promoter, Kennedy Street Enterprises) : When the Abba phenomenon started in the 70s and then continued to grow and grow, we were very lucky and privileged that their Swedish promoter, Thomas Johansson, let us promote the northern shows in England with Abba. Being the fair-minded man that he was Thomas would split the dates territorially between several of the leading promoters at the time.
The first time around when he was testing the market, we played a 2,500 capacity Manchester Free Trade Hall which nowhere near met the demand in 1977 and then in 1979 when they did their arena tour of Great Britain, we did two nights at Bingley Hall (Nov 11 + 12, 1979) in Stafford - this was interesting in that Bingley Hall had never had seated concerts before and was set up with 9,000 reserved seats. It was a huge shed in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farm land and agricultural countryside. With Thomas we had decided the best way to sell the tickets was by postal applications as there was no venue box office and therefore after the first advert on a Friday night, the following Monday 37 sacks of mail arrived containing money for probably enough sales to sell a month at their venue! I have therefore very fond memories of working with Thomas Johansson.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, April 2019)
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The first time around when he was testing the market, we played a 2,500 capacity Manchester Free Trade Hall which nowhere near met the demand in 1977 and then in 1979 when they did their arena tour of Great Britain, we did two nights at Bingley Hall (Nov 11 + 12, 1979) in Stafford - this was interesting in that Bingley Hall had never had seated concerts before and was set up with 9,000 reserved seats. It was a huge shed in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farm land and agricultural countryside. With Thomas we had decided the best way to sell the tickets was by postal applications as there was no venue box office and therefore after the first advert on a Friday night, the following Monday 37 sacks of mail arrived containing money for probably enough sales to sell a month at their venue! I have therefore very fond memories of working with Thomas Johansson.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, April 2019)