Channel 4 News
Next on TV
Tomorrow 6.30pm
Menu
28 Mar 2014

Kate Bush tickets all gone in 15 minutes

Demand for Kate Bush’s comeback show was so high that thousands of fans snapped up all the tickets in less than quarter of an hour on Friday morning. The artist has not performed live for 35 years.

Kate Bush is performing live for 22 nights at the Hammersmith Apollo in August later this year. Some fans subscribed to her mailing list were able to obtain tickets earlier this week, but for the vast majority this morning represented their only chance of purchasing these eagerly sought-after tickets.

However demand was so high that her PR company announced all tickets were gone after just 15 minutes. Her own personal website also crashed due to the volume of traffic.

‘Completely overwhelmed’

She said: “I’m completely overwhelmed by the response to the shows. Thank you so much to everyone. Looking forward to seeing you all later this year.”

Kate Bush has only performed once before, 35 years ago at the same venue when she was just 20. She retired from live performances after touring in 1979.

In a rare interview with Mojo magazine in 2011 she explained that her reason for avoiding live performances was the sheer exertion of the ordeal, which relied heavily on dance and mime.

Read more: Kate Bush tickets: we need to check that you are human

“It was enormously enjoyable. But physically it was absolutely exhausting,” she said.

“I still don’t give up hope completely that I’ll be able to do some live work, but it’s certainly not in the picture at the moment because I just don’t quite know how that would work with how my life is now.”

For long periods she has withdrawn from public life to bring up her son, Bertie.

Simon Presswell, managing director of Ticketmaster UK, said: “As expected demand for Kate Bush tickets was phenomenal. At our peak the Ticketmaster website had over 65,000 fans looking for tickets, and our call centre was humming.

“After a 35-year wait several thousand lucky fans will be seeing Kate Bush perform live, but despite playing 22 dates demand has significantly exceeded the number of tickets available so regrettably a number of fans will be left disappointed.”