Elton John is set to put the most amount of bodies ever inside WIN Stadium with his Once In A Lifetime concert breaking all previous records for ticket sales.
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The production crew of the September tour were in Wollongong on Friday to discuss where exactly they would put all the 20,000 fans and how they could squeeze in a few more.
Tour producer Matthew Lazarus-Hall said there was hope for more tickets to go on sale, though it won’t be many.
“About 20 per cent of the people are coming from outside of NSW and just under 1000 coming from outside of Australia, which puts Wollongong on the map,” Mr Lazarus-Hall said.
“Wollongong is a city on the move and this is another step forward in making Wollongong continue to be the greaest city that it should be.”
Originally it was thought up to 17,000 tickets would be sold for the September 24 show, but the demand saw the initial release sell out quickly.
Mr Lazarus-Hall said the success could be a green light for other international artists to visit but suggested the city needed to improve infrastucture.
“When you do it the first time everyone thinks you’re a little bit crazy and then when it works people are like ‘I want to look at that’,” he said.
“Building like a convention centre would be the jewel in the crown and make people come here more often and make it a destination.”
Elton chose to only include regional cities he hadn’t visited before on this tour which also includes Hobart, Mackay and Cairns.
Wollongong is lucky enough to have the largest stage on the circuit, enabling a better view of the megastar.
“The way we’ve designed it is we’ve made it taller so we can open up seats, get better sight lines and it gives us more produciton so sound and video qualty is going to be fantastic,” Mr Lazarus-Hall said.
Previous estimates by Destination Wollongong of the economic benefits (when thought it would only reap 15,000 - 17,000 fans) was at a conservative $1.5 million.
At the time Destination Wollongong chair Tania Brown said each visitor was forecast to spend around $200 per day.
Fans heading to the concert are being urged to plan early as logistically they may not get the exact parking spot they desire and could experience delays getting to the stadium.
For more information visit: www.wsec.com.au