Maay 10, 2022 - The Sting Zagreb Arena concert will take place on October 31, 2022!

Cherrytree Music Company, Live Nation, and Charm Music are pleased to announce the recently postponed Sting concert on October 31, 2022, at the Zagreb Arena. Sting was supposed to perform at the Zagreb Arena on March 21, as part of his acclaimed 'My Songs' tour, where he performs his favorite songs written during the famous career of this 17-time Grammy Award winner, both with The Police and as a solo artist. 

Hailed as a “masterful performance from start to finish,” the concert “takes fans on a musical journey through time,” with hits like “Fields of Gold,” “Shape of My Heart,” “Roxanne,” and “Demolition Man” and makes one an unforgettable event. Of course, fans can also expect "Englishman In New York,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Message In A Bottle,” and many of Sting’s other big hits.

After a sold-out six-day residency at London’s Palladium, The Times declared My Songs “masterclass”; "Sting remains undoubtedly a skilled performer with a golden catalog of songs." The Telegraph described the concert as a "rare treat," and The Guardian praised Sting as "almost flawless" with "sublime pop alchemy." A special guest and frontman for Sting will be his son, musician Joe Sumner.

Late last year, Sting released the acclaimed album The Bridge, which presents different stages and styles from his unrivaled career and draws inspiration from rock'n'roll, jazz, classical music, and folk. Written and recorded in the year of the global pandemic, this new collection of poems reveals Sting’s reflections on personal loss, separation, lockdown, and extraordinary social and political turmoil.

Tickets are on sale through Eventim.hr and at Eventim sales points. Tickets for the previously scheduled performance will also be valid for the new event date. Ticket returns are possible until June 9, 2022.

Ticket prices for the following categories are: stand I 550 kn, stand II 360 kn, stand down I 560 kn, stand down II 390 kn, stand down III 320 kn, VIP box 830 kn, front rows 830 kn.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

January 16, 2022 - TCN spoke to Nick Hobbs of Charm Music Croatia, a concert division of the Charmenko group in Eastern Europe organizing the biggest shows in the country this year - from Sting to Arctic Monkeys and The Cure. 

If there is one thing Croatians can be excited about this year, it is a stacked concert calendar, which is more than welcome after two years of cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the return of music festivals on the coast, Croatians are particularly looking forward to three massive shows this year announced at the end of 2021 - Sting at Arena Zagreb, Arctic Monkeys at Pula Arena, and The Cure at  Arena Zagreb. 

TCN spoke to the man responsible for making these gigs happen - Nick Hobbs of Charm Music, a concert division operating under the Charmenko group of companies specialized in international music organization.

How did you get into promoting concerts?

It's a long story. When I was 23, I organized an Italian tour for Henry Cow, and I promoted one of the shows myself. They asked me to be their manager.

I moved to London, and a year later, the band split. I carried on working with them on offshoot projects, then I moved to Stockholm for a year and worked for a promoter as their international buyer. Then I moved back to London and joined Rough Trade in about 1985 as an artist agent for their roster outside the UK. I then started managing David Thomas and Pere Ubu and some other acts and gradually, over the years, developed an interest and contacts in Eastern Europe. By about 1995, EE was my main work, so it has been since. In 2003 I moved to Istanbul.

Tell us about Charmenko and Charm in general. What are some of the biggest acts on your roster? 

I can’t remember when I came up with the name, but it was maybe around 1990. It was just me plus a small crew of London-based staff for a long time, and we worked from my home in Brixton. Now we have our own offices in Turkey, Serbia, Croatia, Czechia, and Poland and clients all over EE. We also have our own roster of artists that we represent more or less worldwide.

I’ve worked with many big acts over the years, but off the top of my head...

Radiohead
Muse
George Michael
U2
Ed Sheeran
Rihanna
Beyoncé
Elton John
David Bowie
Lou Reed
Nick Cave
Oasis
Blur
Rammstein

and many others.

Really exciting concerts were announced in Croatia this year, from Sting to Arctic Monkeys and The Cure. How are the interest and ticket sales so far? Do you expect sellouts?

We expect Sting to sell out, Arctic Monkeys are already sold out, and we hope The Cure will sell out; they’re a great live band!

Croatia is not always viewed as a desirable destination for touring musicians, as many acts choose other cities in the region. Why do you think that is? 

It's a small country…and the further south you go into the Balkans, the more straggly concert possibilities become. Anyway, the Balkans are much more developed than they were 20 years ago. So the trend is positive - as long as Bosnia doesn’t fall apart - we hope not!

What difficulties have you encountered when promoting and organizing shows in Croatia? 

Mostly no special difficulties and generally we’ve not had disasters in Croatia and, with one minor exception, the clients we’ve worked with have always paid us - that’s nice. One particular difficulty is that Serbia and Bosnia aren’t part of the EU. Once they become part of the EU, all kinds of opportunities will open for Croatia too. Borders are stupid, just like nationalism is. 

Charm has announced concerts in Zagreb and Pula - anything planned for Split or the Dalmatia region? If not, why?

Zagreb is the capital. Pula has the arena. I’ve done shows in Split; not easy to make them work financially. Usually, provincial shows with international artists rather depend on municipal support for them to be viable. Split is also further from Slovenia, which is an overlapping market with Zagreb and Pula.

What would make promoting and organizing concerts in Croatia easier for Charm Music?

I hope we will develop our own office further. In the end, the concert business depends on ticket buyers. My own wish is for us to be able to work with more left-field artists, but we worked with Terra Neo, for example; it wasn’t a commercial success. Better connections with venues and municipalities would be good, too.

What else can we expect from Charm in 2022?

There's a lot of great music around that we'd love to promote but selling enough tickets to cover the costs is very, very tricky and very, very risky. So we have lots of discussions internally, and we have lots of ideas. 

Learn more about Charmenko and Charm Music Croatia.

For more, check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

November 8, 2021 - Catch Sting at Zagreb Arena next March as part of the legendary British singer-songwriter's 'My Songs' tour!

Cherrytree Music Company, Live Nation, and Charm Music announce Sting on Monday, March 21, 2022, at Arena Zagreb, where the British singer-songwriter will perform as part of the 'My Songs' tour. Ticket sales start on Friday, November 12, through Eventim.hr and at Eventim sales points.

Sting’s 'My Songs' concert is a lush and dynamic show featuring his favorite songs, written during the glorious career of this 17-time Grammy Award winner, both with The Police and as a solo artist. Hailed as a “masterful performance from start to finish,” the concert “takes fans on a musical journey through time,” with hits like “Fields of Gold,” “Shape of My Heart,” “Roxanne,” and “Demolition Man” and makes one an unforgettable event. Of course, fans can also expect the songs "Englishman In New York," "Every Breath You Take," “Message In A Bottle," and many of Sting’s other big hits.

Sting’s latest album, The Bridge, will be released worldwide on November 19 and showcases his prolific and diverse songwriting strength. Written and recorded during the pandemic, this new collection of poems reveals Sting’s reflections on personal loss, separation, lockdown, and extraordinary social and political turmoil. The Bridge presents different stages and styles from his unrivaled career and draws inspiration from genres such as rock n ’roll, jazz, classical music, and folk. This eclectic album features Sting’s typical pop-rock sound, especially well heard on the opening rock salvo of “Rushing Water” and the new indie-pop sound on “If It’s Love.” More about the album can be found at thebridge.sting.com.

Sting’s new weekly web TV series, On the Bridge, recently premiered and offers an intimate insight into the musician’s daily life as he prepares to launch his new album. In addition, Sting is releasing a new episode exclusively on Sting.com every Tuesday at 1 pm as a special tribute to his loyal fans. Each episode is exclusive to 24-hour fan club members and then available to a broader audience the next day from 1 pm.

On tour, Sting will be accompanied by an electric rock ensemble that includes Dominic Miller on guitar, Josh Freese on drums, Rufus Miller on guitar, Kevon Webster on keyboards, Shane Sager on accordion, and Melissa Musique and Gene Noble as backing vocals.

Special guest Joe Sumner appears on all newly announced dates, including the Zagreb concert.

Members of the Sting’s Fan Club will have the opportunity to access exclusive pre-sale tickets, before the general public, by visiting www.sting.com from Wednesday, November 10.

Tickets are on sale from Friday, November 12, through Eventim.hr and at Eventim sales points. Ticket prices for the following categories are: stand I 550 kn, stand II 360 kn, grandstand down I 560 kn, grandstand down II 390 kn, grandstand down III 320 kn, VIP box 830 kn, seats in the front rows 830 kn.

For more information on the tour, tickets, and fan club, visit www.sting.com.

October the 27th, 2020 - The Zagreb Arena has taken quite a different tone than usual, with fun and events being replaced by hospital beds for coronavirus patients as the limited capacities of Croatian medical facilities continue to be stretched thin.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has turned Croatia on its head. The country went from being among the most successful in handling the virus in Europe back in spring when the pandemic first took the continent by storm, with far richer European countries such as the United Kingdom suffering horrendously, to among the worst. Here in the City of Zagreb, the figures have been soaring once again, and the Zagreb Arena is being equipped to deal with patients for whom there may be no hospital beds.

The Zagreb Arena was initially mobilised back in March, when the new coronavirus first managed to penetrate Croatia's first lines of defense, and it's certainly enough to cause concern to know that its capacities may well be needed yet again.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, on the 25th of October, as part of the announcement of the new anti-epidemic measures from the National Civil Protection Headquarters, the same body also announced that a decision had been made to mobilise the Zagreb Arena as a tertiary centre for the treatment of coronavirus patients who require professional medical help to cope with their symptoms.

Croatian Health Miniter Vili Beros announced that patients with mild to moderate symptoms will be treated in the Zagreb Arena, with those with worse clinical pictures being given hospital care within proper healthcare facilities.

As previously touched on, the Zagreb Arena was originally last mobilised in March, and the beds prepared for the sick were taken out of it in May.

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ZAGREB, March 20, 2020 - Hospital beds are being installed In Zagreb Arena sports hall for patients who are not in a serious condition and who are being cared for in local hospitals, and their transfer will be organised, in necessary, to free up hospital capacities for coronavirus patients.

Patients will be transferred to Arena from hospitals to free up the capacity for patients infected with COVID-19, if necessary, the National Civil Protection Authority said on Friday.

The beds are being installed by members of the civil protection.

The Croatian Army personnel on Thursday started erecting tents and an expeditionary camp in front of the Clinical Hospital Dubrava in Zagreb, with a capacity of 270 beds for coronavirus patients, and the tents will be erected by Saturday.

It is a self-sufficient camp for extreme conditions made to be used in field conditions, but it is also intended for civilian use in case of humanitarian disasters.

More coronavirus news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

Enrique Iglesias was supposed to perform in Zagreb on December 1st, but the news today is that the concert has been cancelled because of fraud.

Slobodna Dalmacija reports, based on news from the MSN website, that Enrique Iglesias' Zagreb concert is one of several concerts planned to take place in Eastern Europe this autumn which have now been cancelled.

A statement posted on the website of Latvian agency Bilesu Serviss claims Iglesias' reps at the Creative Arts Agency cancelled the shows after promoters failed to fulfil their side of an agreement to stage the gigs. "Sadly and regrettably, after much careful consideration, and exhausting all possible alternatives, we have been forced to cancel the upcoming shows in Zagreb, Riga, and Minsk," the agency's explanation reads. "ArtBG, the concert tour promoter, producer, and event organiser, has not complied nor fulfilled their contractual obligations with the venues and all production elements for these three events. All of this makes it impossible to put on the show that our fans deserve. The safety of our fans and crew is paramount and we cannot guarantee this for everyone without the promoter fulfilling their obligations."

Croatian contacts from the Arena Zagreb concert hall have confirmed the claims made by the music industry website Pollstar that ArtBG would present themselves as a local promotor for other artists, and after the concert they'd just take the money and leave. They were in charge of Bryan Adams' concert in Zagreb as well.

The Eventim online ticketing platform sold the tickets for the concert, and today you can only see the info that it has been cancelled, just 10 days before the concert was supposed to take place. They offer a brief explanation of the problem but are not able to offer refunds yet, as they've found themselves in a bad situation through no fault of their own (you can read their statement in Croatian and English here).

Il Volo is considered an heir to Three Tenors.

Croatia and France played a decisive match to fight for the semi-finals of the European Championship.

A crucial win for Croatia in the first game of round two in the European Handball Championship. 

Some good news about the fate of the European Handball Championship in Zagreb...for now.