British Summer Time Hyde Park festival director Jim King has told Music Week's that this year's six-day concert series is on course to completely sell out.
All tickets have been snapped up for headline shows by Roger Waters (tonight), The Cure (Saturday), Eric Clapton (Sunday) and Bruno Mars (July 14), with Michael Bublé (July 13) and Paul Simon (July 15) expected to follow suit.
"We fully expect to sell every ticket for all six shows, which will be the third year we've done that," said King, AEG Presents EVP, live music. "That is a phenomenal achievement for our company and says a lot about how we're working with these artists."
While BST's 2018 line-up features a higher proportion of heritage acts than in many previous years, King said this was largely dictated by artist availability.
"We certainly have more mature artists and audiences at this year's event, but that's by no means a strategic decision," he said.
Other acts set to perform over the two weekends include Richard Ashcroft, Seasick Steve, Van Morrison, James Taylor, Santana, Interpol, Steve Winwood, Bananarama and The Shires (pictured), who played a special acoustic set at yesterday's media day in Hyde Park.
Though much of the country is currently gripped by football fever, BST will not be screening England's crunch World Cup quarter final clash with Sweden on Saturday afternoon. Music Week understands organisers felt it would be wrong to interrupt the scheduled performers.
AEG promoted the debut edition of All Points East in Victoria Park in late May, headlined by LCD Soundsystem, The xx and Bjork, and three headline shows by Catfish And The Bottlemen, The National and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds under the APE Presents banner at the same site the following weekend. The promoter also staged The Rolling Stones' UK stadium tour earlier this summer.
"We were fortunate enough to do a big stadium run with The Rolling Stones, which was just incredible," added King. "They sold out three stadiums in London, unbelievable.
"We're going to sell every ticket out at BST, we sold more tickets at Victoria Park for All Points East than we ever dreamed we would in the first year and I think a number of our competitors are having strong showings as well.
"I think good shows and festivals work and average ones struggle - and that's the benchmark. If people are seeing great headliners, great bills and getting value for money then they're prepared to come out and support those events."
