Record breaking demand for tickets to the March shows in New Zealand and Australia as additional dates in Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne sell out out in minutes. Tickets for all eight stadium shows have now sold out in a matter of hours.

Maybe it was the excitement from the outdoor shows in Europe this past summer, maybe the long-awaited return to New Zealand and Australia, whatever the reasons there has been unbelievable ticket demand for the March shows which were the first to be announced for the 2006 leg of the Vertigo Tour.

Three more shows went on sale yesterday in Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne, breaking box-office records again and selling out in hours. The second Auckland show, even with a limit of four tickets per person, sold out in under two hours.

Earlier this month a quarter of a million tickets were sold for the first five shows in Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane - including 160,000 during the first 90 minutes. The concerts were the quickest sell outs in the history of each venue with sales in Adelaide breaking the largest ever concert attendance in that city.

Looks like it's going to be quite an event when the band arrive down under in March: 2001's Elevation Tour didn't make it to either country, while PopMart only got to Australia in 1998. The Auckland shows will be the band's first visit to New Zealand since December 1993.