Iron Maiden staged its first organised running event in São Paulo, drawing 6,000 fans to the world premiere of what the band has named the Iron Maiden Run, according to Dagens Nyheter. The Swedish newspaper's correspondent Henrik Brandão Jönsson took part and filed a first-person account published on 24 October 2026.
The event was tied to the band's 50th-anniversary world tour, whose name also serves as the title of the run. São Paulo was chosen as the starting point, and Dagens Nyheter describes it as the metropolis with the largest Iron Maiden audience on the planet.
Why it matters
Heavy metal and distance running are not an obvious pairing, but the turnout suggests the band's fan base will follow it into new territory. According to Dagens Nyheter, nearly 300,000 people in São Paulo listen to Iron Maiden each month on Spotify — more than double the figure for London, the band's home city.
The run also extends a relationship between band and city that stretches back four decades, and it gives the anniversary tour a physical, participatory dimension beyond the concert stage.
A starting line of black shirts and Churchill
Dagens Nyheter reports that most runners in the starting pen looked well prepared, wearing proper running shoes and stretching with practised movements. Jönsson, by contrast, had bought his running shorts two days earlier and had not taken part in an organised race since a youth event in Malmö in 1981.
Warm-up music came from the band's own catalogue. The anti-colonial song "Run to the Hills" played over the speakers, and thousands of runners in black jumped in time to it, shouting the chorus, according to the account. One runner beside the correspondent, Fábio, a 46-year-old engineer, told the newspaper that he used to drink beer and get high at Maiden concerts and was now preparing to run a Maiden race. His wife, who had never accompanied him to a concert, was warming up at his side.
Rather than the smell of marijuana, Dagens Nyheter reports, the start area carried the sound of Winston Churchill's speech to the House of Commons after the evacuation from Dunkirk, ending with the line "We shall never surrender." The runners then poured into the streets of South America's largest city.
The article notes that São Paulo, Latin America's economic engine, is a heavy rock city rather than a samba one. AC/DC played three sold-out nights at the Morumbi football stadium there earlier this year to more than 200,000 spectators, and the city is among the world's biggest markets for Metallica. But no band is more closely associated with São Paulo than Iron Maiden, according to Dagens Nyheter.
Blood, a flying guitar and a fifty-year bond
The newspaper recounts how the band's first Brazilian appearance came at the Rock in Rio festival in 1985, held over ten days on a muddy field as the country was emerging from military dictatorship. More than 300,000 people gathered for that South American debut. During "Revelations", singer Bruce Dickinson threw his guitar into the air and failed to catch it; it struck his forehead and he began to bleed. A manager ordered him back on stage, and Brazil's largest TV channel broadcast his bloodied face live across every state. Dickinson has since said that performance won the band the southern hemisphere's largest country overnight, according to Dagens Nyheter.
The band has played in Brazil around fifty times since. When drummer Nicko McBrain retired from touring two years ago, he chose São Paulo rather than London for his farewell concert, the newspaper reports. The 2001 Rock in Rio show became the first live album to feature both Dickinson and Adrian Smith since "Live After Death" in 1985.
Along the route, runners passed Galeria do Rock, which Dagens Nyheter describes as the world's tallest heavy metal department store. Spectators reached out their arms and made the devil sign, and the runners returned it.
For Jönsson, the race was also a lesson in belonging. He writes that few places make him feel as integrated as Iron Maiden concerts in Brazil, where he is treated not as a foreigner but as a fellow fan. He saw the band in Copenhagen before it had ever set foot in Brazil and has guitarist Dave Murray's signature on the inside of a denim jacket. His Swedish background earns him respect among Brazilian fans, who remember the band's 2005 show at Ullevi, which many regard as one of its best.
The next stops on the anniversary tour, and whether the Iron Maiden Run travels beyond São Paulo, are the things to watch.
