Elton John made history in Newcastle at the weekend, partly thanks to a Wollongong man who had done it all before.
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Marc Swan runs the WIN Entertainment Centre and adjoining stadium and successfully pulled off the city's biggest concert in 2017 with Elton belting out the ballads to tens of thousands of fans.
He was tasked to help the Novocastrians perform a similar feat, their first rock'n'roll show held at McDonald Jones Stadium since the Newcastle Earthquake benefit 33 years ago.
"I've had a fair bit of experience with outdoor concerts as well, so just trying to support the local teams seeing as its their first outdoor shows," he said.
"Sunday night [we had about] 20,000 people and Tuesday - which was the first show that went on sale - was just shy of 30,000 ticket-holders."
Swan will then travel to Sydney ready to help out at Allianz Stadium as one of pop's greatest icons says "goodbye" to his fans one concert at a time.
Sadly Elton's schedule is tightly locked in, so Swan can't envisage he'll suddenly add a Wollongong show to hist list (unless there's another round of the "Farewell Tour").
But there's plenty of other big names that have been visiting the 'Gong (like Keith Urban, The Offsrping) and more to come (Don McLean and comedian Dave Chappelle).
Swan was confident 2023 was shaping up to be a great year.
"Comedy is doing really, well at the moment, we've got two Jimmy Carr shows, Michael McIntyre and Dave Chappelle [coming]," he said.
"This year will be quite good, there's still a bit of concert type material that we're working on."
The Venue Manager said he had been fielding some inquiries from festival organisers looking for alternatives to the waterlogged Stuart Park, while they were "working on" securing a number of concerts at WIN Stadium for later in the year.
"There's some things we're trying to land for the end of the year - a mix of sport and entertainment, but it will take us a little bit to sort that out. There is definitely a lot of interest in WIN Stadium."
Elton John will also perform in Melbourne, Brisbane, Christchurch and in Auckland on this tour. Details: www.frontiertouring.com/eltonjohn
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