With little under two weeks until The Book Of Souls World Tour opens at Florida’s BB&T Center on Feb 24th we thought we’d give you a brief update on how it’s all going. The band have been locked away in rehearsals for the past few weeks working on the new set-list and report that everything is going exceptionally well and they are raring to get started.

Ed Force One, our new 747 Jumbo, is all decaled or branded-up ready to go and Bruce has his shiny new 747 type rating so he can fly the plane. Ed Force One flies into the UK on Wednesday evening and IronMaiden.com will be at Cardiff Airport, stepladder and phone in hand, to bring you the first footage live on Periscope! Keep an eye on the website or our social media channels for details - we’re @ironmaiden on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

As we initially announced we’ll be using Ed Force One right around the world as usual but also including the first few shows in Europe this time, making this the first time EF1 has visited Europe on tour!. However after the Swedish show at Gothenburg Ullvei Stadium on June 17 we’ll be reverting to our traditional truck & bus touring methods as logistically this makes much more sense considering the lesser distances involved and airport parameters.

Just to remind you, although many of the shows are already sold out, particularly in North America , there are always likely to be some production-hold tickets released to the public closer to show day. So if you do find a venue is sold out it’s always worth checking with them again, probably from around 3 days in advance of any show, right up to show day itself, in case these held tickets are being released for sale. Also for fans in North America interested in the Trooper Pre-Party Upgrade kindly note that Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas and New York are already sold out and other cities going quickly, so if you are interested...!

More news soon from Cardiff!