Luke Combs to headline two Eden Park shows in New Zealand ...
NZ Herald
18 Sep, 2024 08:00 PM3 mins to read
Country singer Luke Combs is making his way to New Zealand in January 2025. Photo / David Bergman
Country singer Luke Combs has announced he’s bringing two record-breaking shows to Auckland in January next year.
Combs is returning to New Zealand shores, with a significant venue upgrade, following his Spark Arena show in 2023 that sold out in minutes.
Herald entertainment editor Jenni Mortimer reviewed the show, saying Combs was “more impressive than many of the world’s biggest acts I have witnessed take on Aotearoa’s biggest arenas”.
Now he’s set to go even bigger.
In a first for Eden Park, the Beautiful Crazy hitmaker will take over the venue for two weekend nights from January 17-18, becoming the only country star to have headlined the arena.
From there, Combs flies to Australia to perform six more stadium concerts in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
Joining Combs on the tour will be fellow Americans Jordan Davis and Mitchell Tenpenny, as well as 18-year-old Australian country star Lane Pittman. Pittman previously supported Combs on his 2023 tour of New Zealand and Australia.
When the Forever After All singer visited Aotearoa in August last year, many Kiwi fans missed out on getting tickets to see the world’s biggest name in country music perform with unprecedented demand for his only show.
But there should be plenty more tickets up for grabs this time around, with Eden Park’s capacity of up to 60,000 for concerts and the promise of two shows catering to New Zealand’s booming country fanbase.
Frontier Touring presale tickets for Combs’ January 2025 shows go live next Tuesday at 1pm, with the sale opening to the general public 24 hours later.
Having just wrapped up a world tour, Combs sold out stadiums across North America, performing to massive crowds at Pennsylvania’s Beaver Stadium (80,000 capacity) and Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium (70,000).
Eden Park has been trying to double the number of concerts held at the venue, with its current resource consent only allowing for six a year, which Eden Park chief executive Nick Sautner says “restricts our ability to attract and accommodate top-tier international acts”, reported the Herald’s Emma Gleason.
So far, New Zealand has been dodged by Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo on their most recent world tours. Sautner told the Herald’s Lillie Rohan in February that despite having the space, it was the six-concerts-per-year restrictions that made it difficult to secure artists.
Travis Scott is performing on October 31 at the venue, while Coldplay will play three shows in November, breaking another of Eden Park’s records by being “the first artist to play three nights in the venue’s 123-year history”, according to a statement from Live Nation.
Frontier Touring’s 20-hour pre-sale runs from 1pm on Tuesday, September 24, via https://www.frontiertouring.com/lukecombs.
Tickets will then be made available to the general public from 1pm on Wednesday, September 25, on ticketmaster.co.nz.
Luke Combs - New Zealand & Australian Tour Dates:
