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O2 run gives Spice Girls £10m each
By Amar Singh 23.01.08
Sell out: The Spice Girls at the 02
Bumper pay day: The band made £10m each from their 02 run
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The Spice Girls have each pocketed £10 million from their 17-night run of sell-out gigs at the O2, we can reveal.
The reunited pop group played their final London gig in the former Millennium Dome in Greenwich last night before heading to Manchester today.
The unprecedented success of the concerts has left Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm and Geri Halliwell dividing £50 million.
It is thought to be one of the most lucrative stretches of gigs for any group performing in Britain, with nearly 400,000 people paying up to £75 to see them. The women will have profited more than other artists to have played at the arena because they have commanded a higher than average ticket sales for a multiple night run.
An O2 source said: "It's been a huge success for them and this run of gigs at the O2 will probably be the icing on the cake of their reunion. Barbra Streisand had high ticket prices but only did three nights while Prince did 21 nights but sold tickets for next to nothing - not many groups can sell out 17 gigs at £75 a ticket, it's quite an achievement."
Among the audience for last night's concert was David Beckham and his sons Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz as well as Bob Geldof, who was there with his daughter Pixie.
David Campbell, chief executive of the O2 told the Standard: "It's been a lovely, friendly, family atmosphere over the past few weeks, we have really enjoyed having the girls here."
He said the venue still hoped to book Michael Jackson later this year.
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Reader views (4)
I was going to say that 400000 at £75 per head = £30million, but I saw that 2 others as brilliant as me beat me to it.
I know that the spice girls are a bit thick but surely even they couldn't make this sort of mistake. They are probably lucky to have got a couple of million each for the o2 concerts.
- Steven Patrick M, London, UK
I went last night. I loved it and I bought a T-shirt!
The show was fantastic and well done.
Not massive Spice fan or of them individually but a chance to see something from my younger days.
Who cares - they are loaded anyway.
What difference will it make how much money they make - it's all about the money anyway.
- S. Lefevre, SUNBURY-ON-THAMES
How can they have banked £10 million each when the total ticket receipts would be less than £30 million ( yielding less than £6 million per Spice Girl ) and with sizeable overheads to meet including venue hire, security, backing musicians, dancers, road & lighting crew etc. Yes I know there would be merchandising income from over-priced T-shirts & programmes but to attribute a figue of £10 million each is surely fanciful ?
- Jeremy Evans, South Woodford
Even more amazing given that 400,000 tickets at a maximum of £75 gives a total revenue of 30 million. So if each Spice took home 10 million then they are clearly very financially astute and the organisers are bankrupt. I hope they sold a lot of t-shirts!
- James, London
