Pellaz
Tigron of Immanion
Live Nation is promoting the tour. It is in the press release on Maiden's website announcing the tour.
Which, I believe, proves my point, no?
But you don't think a band like Iron Maiden, who hasn't played in a city like Atlanta with Bruce in about 15 years, wouldn't draw well here?
People would be a lot more willing and likely to make the 3-5 hour drive from Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, SC, NC, etc than they would be to make a 12 hour trek.
Economics aren't really a problem.
This would be true...IF the Atlanta show had an exclusion radius -- contractually preventing shows anywhere in Florida, say, and anywhere south of DC and east of Texas. It's possible their booking agent was unwilling to provide that sort of exclusion zone.
At least Glenn, the man with the biggest balls, hosts his METAL festivals in the ATL! How many times did he host up north? Oh yeah, once. How many times on the west coast? Oh yeah, zero!
Well, Glenn also happens to live closest to Atlanta, of all the places you mentioned.
That's not why he moved PPUSA to Atlanta, though. He tried venues in other cities along the Eastern seaboard and at least as far west as Chicago, and no-one would give him the time of day. ("You want to book our 1,000+ capacity hall for TWO nights? Who ARE you?")
Happily, connections were made, people were talked-to, and the rest is history.
Threads like these just remind me of Glenn's statement that if I recall correctly, stated that there's only really one person in control of all these major arenas in Atlanta, and that person doesn't really like metal. Thus, we don't get many of these tours.
This is a city where the largest and longest-running FM rock radio station had a "no Iron Maiden" rule.
I still think it comes down to LiveNation being worried about meeting the guarantee here.
Atlanta:
Georgia Dome: 71,000
Philips Arena: 21,000
Lakewood Amphitheater: 19,000
Gwinett Center: 13,000
It's a pity LiveNation doesn't book at Gwinnett Center (at least, I don't think they do). It'd be a great venue for the tour...but maybe a bit small for the guarantee.