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France 24
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- France 24
Nazi-sympathising singer's huge gig to paralyse Zagreb
A dozen hospitals have been put on alert to brace for a surge in demand during the Thompson concert on Saturday, while thousands of police will be deployed to manage the influx into a city already hosting summer tourists. A field hospital with 200 beds will also be set up near the racecourse venue and fans have been warned to prepare for summer heat. Marko Perkovic, known by his stage name Thompson, has been banned from performing in several countries due to his sympathies with Croatia's World War II fascist Ustasha regime. Ustasha symbols are common at Thompson concerts, and he begins one of the most popular songs by screaming a fascist slogan infamously used by the Nazi-allied regime. -'People adore him'- The concert sold out in just a few days in April, with a third of his fans under 28, according to the ticketing platform Entrio. Police said there would be at least 450,000 people at Croatia's biggest concert. "People adore him, due to his patriotic songs and affection for Croatia," 22-year-old Nikola, who did not give his family name, told AFP ahead of the concert. The student ignores the Ustasha shouts from Thompson and said it just reflects the "wartime" era in which the song was recorded. "I was not even born when it was released." A folk-rock icon of Croatia's right-wing, Thompson first became popular for his nationalist songs in the 1990s during the country's war of independence. But his manager, Zdravko Barisic, told local media that it was "inappropriate" to accuse him of Ustasha sympathies and that he was hosting a "concert, not a political rally". Zagreb's left-wing mayor, Tomislav Tomsic, rejected earlier calls to ban the performance, saying they were "counter-productive". -'Patriotic charge'- In recent years, Croatia has seen a growing tolerance for its pro-Nazi past and critics accuse authorities of failing to sanction the use of Ustasha emblems. The Ustasha persecuted and killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, anti-fascist Croatians, Roma and others in concentration camps during World War II. But historian Hrvoje Klasic told AFP that the singer's popularity does not reflect an increasing support for far-right movements in mainstream society. The vast majority of fans perceive Thompson as a "patriot, presenting traditional values like homeland, religion, family", Klasic told AFP. "Croatian society traditionally leans slightly to the right, with a patriotic charge."
Euronews
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
Croatian singer Marko Perković to break record for most tickets sold for a single concert in history
ADVERTISEMENT Who has sold the most tickets to a single concert? Michel Jackson ? Coldplay ? Taylor Swift ? All fine guesses, but up until recently, it was Italian pop-rocker Vasco Rossi - also known mononymously as Vasco - who had the most attended ticketed concert in the world. Rossi's record was set in 2017, when he performed in front of 225,173 fans at his concert at the Parco Enzo Ferrari in Modena. Now, Croatian singer Marko Perković, who has been the lead singer of the band Thompson since 1991, is on track to break that record. The 58-year-old rocker is set to take to the stage in Zagreb to perform at the city's Hippodrome venue on 5 July. According to new reports, the show at the 47-hectare horse racing track has sold an impressive 281,774 tickets in less than 24 hours – making it the highest-attended single show on record, overlapping the likes of Paul McCartney in 1990 in Rio, and Tina Turner in 1988 for her legendary Break Every Rule World Tour, also in Rio. The company behind the tickets sold, Entrio, claimed to be 'extremely proud' that it was able to efficiently and effectively handle 'one of the most complex ticket sales for a single concert in the world.' 'The Entrio engineering team worked for almost 30 hours straight, during an unprecedented rush of fans to buy tickets, to optimise the server infrastructure, solve a number of technical challenges, maximize sales, eliminate three powerful hacker attacks and ensure that hundreds of other events that we simultaneously sold in three markets were running successfully,' according to a statement from Entiro. The Zagreb Hippodrome has previously hosted several mega concerts by famous bands, including Metallica in 2010 (more than 30,000 fans), Ed Sheeran in 2024 (70,000) and The Rolling Stones , who had more than 80,000 fans attend their Bridges To Babylon show in 1998. This was the first major concert in independent Croatia, coming shortly after the reintegration of Eastern Slavonia.
