The East London band will play 12 dates in the UK, visiting Nottingham, Dublin, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, London, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Cardiff next May. Special guests Shinedown will be joining them.

The tour follows the release of their album The Book of Souls in September of last year, and the tour began in February of this year. The last time they played the UK was for one date at the rock festival Download back in June.

On the band’s official website, founder of the band and bass player Steve Harris has said:

“As it’s been so long since our last full UK arena tour, we really wanted to get to our fans in as many cities as possible. We’re really looking forward to it, especially visiting places we haven’t been to for a very long time like Leeds where we haven’t played since 2005 and Liverpool where we haven’t played since 1990.

“The whole band is really enjoying this tour and although we love playing festivals and stadiums, it is terrific to return to the intimacy and atmosphere of arenas. The songs from The Book Of Souls album and the new Maya-themed Eddies and stage sets have gone down really well and fan reaction has been amazing. And of course we know our fans appreciate us playing a lot of the older songs too, which we will continue to do.”

Iron Maiden are considered one of the most successful heavy metal bands in history, with The Observer reporting in 2015 that the band have sold over 90 million copies of their albums worldwide.

Tickets go on sale Friday 30 September at 9am. The dates for the shows are:

4/05 – Nottingham Motorpoint Arena
6/05 – Dublin 3arena
8/05 – Manchester Arena
10/05 – Sheffield Arena
11/05 – Leeds First Direct Arena
14/05 – Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
16/05 – Glasgow SSE Hydro Arena
17/05 – Aberdeen AECC GE Oil Gas Arena
20/05 – Liverpool Echo Arena
21/05 – Birmingham Barclaycard Arena
24/05 – Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
27/05 – London O2 Arena