Christmas has come early for hordes of fans of boy band One Direction as we can reveal they will play TWO gigs in Belfast next year.
And we can confirm tickets for the two concerts at Belfast’s Odyssey Arena will go on sale this week.
Those tickets are sure to be the must-have Christmas present for every teenage girl in Ireland and it’s understood the record-breaking band will play other dates in Ireland too.
The dates were confirmed to the Sunday World last night as being October 20 and 21.
Sources close to the band said they desperately wanted to come back to Ulster after missing out Belfast on their tour this year.
The group which comprises Irish star Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson have been topping the charts and breaking all kinds of pop records over the last three years.
Earlier this year the five-piece band packed out Croke Park in Dublin three times – selling around 200,000 tickets within minutes of them going on sale.
But the hugely popular boy band, who hailed from the X-Factor, have not played in Northern Ireland since they played four nights at the Odyssey Arena in 2013.
Confirmation that they plan to return is a massive boost for fans here who must have feared the group had become such a massive global success it was questionable whether they would ever play the relatively small Belfast venue again.
One Direction’s four albums, Up All Night (2011), Take Me Home (2012), Midnight Memories (2013) and Four (2014) broke records, topped charts in most major markets, and generated hit singles including “What Makes You Beautiful”, “Live While We’re Young”, “Story of My Life” and “Steal My Girl”.