André Rieu concert breaks UK records

André Rieu’s 2015 Maastricht Concert has broken single night and lifetime box office records for a music concert in the UK after taking more than £1m on Saturday night.

The CinemaLive-distributed event is the first music concert to take more than £1m at the UK box office on a single day, grossing £1,022,989 [source: Rentrak] on Saturday night, when it was the third-highest grossing film behind Ant-Man and Minions.

The event also screened at an additional 54 cinemas on Sunday, taking the current UK box office gross to £1,078,348, a lifetime record for a music concert.

The film surpassed the previous one day and lifetime records set by Take That Live in June and One Direction: Where We Are - The Concert Film.

A combined 150,000 people paid to see the film in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands and Denmark, where the film also broke records.

The concert also screened at venues in Belgium, Romania, Germany and Finland, bringing the estimated European gross box office figure to £1.4m for the weekend, according to CinemaLive.

Further screenings are due to take place this weekend in Australia and New Zealand, followed by Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina.

Violinist and conductor Rieu, known as the modern ‘Waltz King’, performs a series of concerts in his hometown of Maastricht in The Netherlands every year where he is joined by his Johann Strauss Orchestra, sopranos, tenors and special guests.

The CinemaLive event has reached a growing audience since 2011 and is hosted by Good Morning Britain’s Charlotte Hawkins who introduces the cinema audience to Maastricht, the concert itself, and conducts an interview with André the moment he steps off stage, exclusively for cinema audiences.

CinemaLive CEO and co-director Peter Skillman, said: “This once again proves audiences’ appetite to see high-quality music concerts and arts productions in a cinema environment, demonstrating that a theatrical release is a viable revenue stream in an artist’s or producer’s overall offering to fans”.

Distributor CinemaLive is understood to be lining up another music concert event to add to its portfolio and will be distributing the performance of Verdi’s Aida on Sydney Harbour later this year.