Metallica tour to come to New Zealand in 2025

Metallica. Photo: Metallica

Rock band Metallica will bring their M72 world tour to New Zealand in November 2025.

The show at Auckland's Eden Park promises a whole bunch of experiences including access to a meet and greet, production and stage tours, food and beverage in the "black box" lounge, early entry into the venue, and access to what's called the "snake pit" - spots by the stadium as close to the band as possible.

Evanescence and Suicidal Tendencies will support the legendary rockband on the NZ leg of the tour.

Metallica last performed in Aoteroa nearly 15 years ago where they unleashed two shows in Christchurch and two in Auckland. The band - made up of James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo - cancelled their tour of NZ in 2019 about a month before the scheduled shows, after Hetfield, the band's vocalist and guitarist, checked into an addiction recovery programme.

In a statement released at the time, the band members said: "As most of you probably know, our brother James has been struggling with addiction on and off for many years. He has now, unfortunately, had to re-enter a treatment programme to work on his recovery again."

They said they were looking at securing a new tour period and would travel to Australia and New Zealand "as soon as health and schedule permit".

The first Auckland concert at Mt Smart Stadium, which had been scheduled for 31 October 2019, sold out within 12 minutes.

The 2010 shows were Metallica's first in New Zealand since headlining the Big Day Out in 2004.

Tickets for the 2025 set go on sale Monday, 4 November at 12pm. Fan club pre-sales begin Tuesday, 29 October. For more info visit metallica.lnk.to/M72-AU-NZ-2025