Iron Maiden have announced their last two shows for 2026, which will mark the final time the British heavy metal titans step onstage before taking a year off from touring.
Earlier today (February 26), the band revealed that their Run For Your Lives world tour, which kicked off last year and is seeing them play material from their first nine albums exclusively, will wrap up with a pair of gigs at K-Arena in Yokohama, Japan on November 24 and 25. Tickets go on sale on April 25.
Press materials say that these will be “the very last shows the band will play until at least 2028”, as Maiden plan to “take a well-earned break from being on the road for the whole of 2027”, by which point their 50th-anniversary trek will have lasted on-and-off for almost two years. The band launched the tour with a European leg last May, and in June they played a blockbuster show to 70,000 people at London Stadium on their home turf of the capital city’s East End.
The tour will pick back up for a second European leg this May, which will finish with a two-day festival, Eddfest, at Knebworth House in Stevenage, taking place from July 10 to 11. The band will play on the 11th – supported by The Hu, The Darkness, Airbourne and The Almighty – with the 10th acting as a warm-up day featuring a Maiden museum, an expanded bar and a smaller stage of performers all connected to Maiden in some way.
The shows will continue with a North, Central and South American run from August to early November, before an Asian leg ends the entire tour in late November. More shows for Asia are set to be announced, but the two dates in Japan will be the last. See all currently-announced stops and pick up remaining tickets via the Maiden website.
As well as touring, Maiden are set to celebrate their belated golden anniversary with the theatrical release of a new documentary, Burning Ambition, on May 7. It was announced earlier this week that the band have been nominated for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Despite being eligible to enter the Hall since 2004, they’ve only been nominated twice before and were passed over both times. Frontman Bruce Dickinson has previously called the institution a “complete load of bollocks”.
Dickinson was recently spotted in the studio working on his eighth solo album, the follow-up to 2024’s The Mandrake Project. The songs are being recorded live at California’s Studio 606, owned by Foo Fighters singer/guitarist Dave Grohl, and members of Brazilian extreme metal veterans Sepultura appear to be involved. It’s likely, albeit unconfirmed, that Dickinson will return to the road with his solo band during Maiden’s 2027 downtime.
Other members of the band have their own solo projects, as well. Founder, bassist and principal songwriter Steve Harris leads the band British Lion – which also features Maiden’s live drummer Simon Dawson – and guitarist Adrian Smith collaborates with The Winery Dogs’ Richie Kotzen in Smith/Kotzen. None of these outlets have announced plans for 2027 as of yet.
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