Light Years Away

Just beginning the planning process. I was alarmed today to discover that almost all of Kylie's Australian Tour tickets have already been sold:

West Australian fans proved just how much they loved Kylie earlier this year when three Perth concerts sold out in a matter of hours. As a fourth show in Perth isn't possible, Kylie's management and promoter have been in talks determining whether seats could be added to the existing shows to meet the demand for more tickets. It looks like it worked, because an additional section of tickets will be released for Kylie's first Perth concert at the Burswood Dome on Sunday, June 12.

But what if I can't make that concert?

If you shouldn't be so lucky, then you should try your hand winning a Willy Wonka-style golden ticket. Festival Mushroom Records have weaved a lot of magic and have confirmed a national 'find the golden ticket' (read: peel a sticker off the cover of the single which reveals a unique code that you enter into a ninemsn database) competition where anyone who buys Giving You Up in its first week of release (from April 10-16 only) gets the chance to sit front row at one of Kylie's Australian Showgirl shows! There are five double passes hidden... so happy hunting!

That's ridiculous! I'm not going to buy every CD-single in Australia next week hoping to get lucky! Nevertheless, in response to heavy demand, new shows HAVE been squeezed into her itinerary:

True to past form, Kylie has sold out another Showgirl concert at astonishing speed. A fifth Melbourne concert went on sale this morning at 9.00am with all tickets snapped up in just two hours.

In response to the continued demand for tickets, Kylie has agreed to celebrate her birthday with her fans with one final Melbourne concert on Saturday 28 May. ...Kylie said; "I can’t think of a more appropriate way to spend my birthday than at home in Melbourne doing what I love best. I’m enjoying the Showgirl tour so much and I’d love to share this special day with my fans in Melbourne."

Promoter Michael Gudinski said; "Kylie’s Showgirl tour is already one big party from start to finish, so it seems fitting that Kylie is prepared to perform on her birthday. This will be an unforgettable night for her Melbourne fans."

The sixth Melbourne concert will absolutely be the last chance for fans to see Kylie in Melbourne on the Showgirl tour. So get your party shoes on and secure your tickets now.

So, I made a stab at the newly-announced third show in Brisbane Queensland, on Australia's fabled 'Gold Coast', north of Sydney, on Monday June 6th (which works out to June 5th on this side of the International Date Line). I secured one "Gold" ticket:

Kylie announced the European leg of her tour in 2004 and the tour exploded from the original dates to a thirty-five date run. Ticketing websites and booking agencies went into meltdown as the systems literally couldn't meet the demand for tickets.

...An enormous AUS$3 million stage will be especially shipped from the UK for the Australian tour.

And while no money will be spared in the production of the tour (staging of Show Girl will exceed the AUS$10 million cost of the Fever tour), Kylie is adamant the costs won't subsequently hit the wallets of her fans.

After a number of discussions with promoter Michael Gudinski, it was decided to keep ticket prices exactly the same as her 2002 Fever tour.

Michael Gudinski said the decision is illustrative of Kylie's long term dedication to her fans.

"Kylie wanted to ensure that her Show Girl ticket prices were kept as reasonable as possible.

"This is an enormously spectacular show, which will cost a fortune to stage, but Kylie's decision from day one was to keep the prices as they were on her last tour."

The Brisbane Entertainment Centre (BEC), built in 1986, sounds like a nice place: smaller than ARCO Arena's 17,317 seats.

The Brisbane Entertainment Centre is Queensland’s premier entertainment and meeting facility and was purpose built to accommodate the most complex events, from an intimate setting of 500 people up to a maximum of 13,500 for the grandest extravaganzas and international conferences.

Now the hard part - getting time off work and plane tickets and lodging! (Oh yeah, and unloading those silly Irish tickets!) Fun facts about the tour:

The show represents Kylie's finest moments in music, performance and style and is an homage to the showgirl, one of the most exotic, decadent and sensual icons of our times. Inspiration has come from the Moulin Rouge to the Folies Bergere, from the Doris Girls of the Paris Lido to the entertainment palaces of Las Vegas, from the underground burlesque bars of Soho to the Busby Berkeley musicals of the thirties. Kylie's show pays tribute to the showgirl in all her forms and guises. It also amalgamates the strengths of Kylie's past three major tours - the intimacy of 'Intimate and Live', the celebratory aspects of 'On A Night Like This' and the technological futurism of 'Fever'.

Kylie recently admitted that the scale of this tour came home to her when she realised the amount of trucks it would take to get the show from one city/country to the next - this show needs 15 trucks to ferry it around, including half of a truck devoted solely to feathers!

The show is so huge that it needs well over 100 people to get it on the road. The million pound, art deco inspired stage is believed to be the biggest ever built for an arena tour and features 5 hydraulic lifts within its construction. Like Kylie's 2002 Fever tour, Showgirl pushes the technological boundaries, using innovative technology in video, lighting and sound. At each venue the trucks will start unloading at 7am to have the show ready for 9pm.

Onstage with Kylie will be 7 band members and 12 dancers.

Here's a nice picture (via Bogs Doddy, from this site):