It was August 2022, when my Favorite Band Iron Maiden was announced to headline the Wacken Festival 2023. In September 2022 I was one of the lucky “early birds” who got a ticket for one of the biggest Heavy Metal Festivals worldwide. It was sold out within less than a day. 80.000 Tickets and I had one of them.

Just add another Ticket

Just a few weeks later, Iron Maiden announced their touring. As it happens, before Wacken they play in Frankfurt and Munich. Perfect, so I can see them three times. I ordered the ticket and by a miracle, the hard tickets arrived in the Philippines just 10 days later. That makes me question, what the ticket center in Germany does, and others can´t do. Mail from Germany can take months and one has no guarantee, that they ever arrive.

Anyway, the Maiden shows were also sold out quickly and a added show in Munich was announced. Guess what, I ordered the next ticket… and this also made it in 2 weeks.

I was already completely happy with 4x Maiden. I am just gonna stay there and cry in happiness for 2 hours, dance a bit around, smile until I have a cramp in my cheeks and maybe even ejaculate a few times. Yes, I am really that big of an Iron Maiden supporter.

And maybe one more

I just got the third Maiden Ticket, when Rammstein announced their European Stadium Tour 2023. And it happened that they scheduled a show in the Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna 3 days before the Maiden Frankfurt-Ggig. Of course, I was lucky again to score a ticket. That being not enough, a second show a day later was announced for the following day. I guess you know what happened, and yes, I got one, too.

The Rammstein Tickets are personalized digital Tickets, so I did not have to worry about shipping. Holding Wacken, 3x Iron Maiden and 2x Ramstein tickets in my hands, it was time to think about flights, hotels, transportation between the venues, and even more important, how to finance that all.

Without getting too much into details, it turned out to become the most expensive trip of my life. From my first flight ticket research I was like: boy oh boy, that is more than double of what I paid on the last Europe flights.

However, I had the tickets, so there are no other options than booking a flight. That is basically how I do a lot of stuff. I buy something (like in this case the tickets) and then look into it, how I make it work.

Anyway, I got a flight from Dumaguete to Manila to Taipei to Vienna.  The last “hop” from Taiwan to Austria is 13.5 hours. It is the longest flight I ever had, as much I can think back. Up to this point, I think 12 hours was my longest flight, which was already a bit more of what I would consider comfortable. Altogether, the trip from my house to the Hotel in Vienna will take up to 38 hours. How that worked out for me can be read in one of the next articles.

Cheers and thick skin on the arse from cheap seats on my european summer tour 2023

Rhoody