Avantasia guitarist Oliver Hartmann has checked in with the following update:

"After reaching #3 at the Eurovision Song Contest, a great aftershow party with all participants, and a well deserved day off to retire I want to thank again all the rock, hard rock and metal fans out there for watching, voting, mailing wishes and crossing their fingers. Me and everybody else at Avantasia is now looking forward to a long, long tour with (luckily) many already sold out shows!

And at this point I have to admit that I'm really proud to be part of Avantasia as singer and guitar player since the first world tour in 2008, the first album and hymns such as 'Sign Of The Cross' sixteen (!!!) years ago. Full stop.

News about the first shows will be coming soon!"

On February 25th, Tobias Sammet's metal opera band Avantasia performed in the preliminary round of the Eurovision Song Contest for their native Germany. The goal was to be chosen to represent their country later this year in Stockholm, Sweden for the main Eurovision event. Avantasia placed 3rd out of the 10 acts on the bill. Check out Avantasia's performance below.

This week Avantasia are going to set off on the Ghostlights World Tour 2016 in Berlin. Eight shows are sold out already, and many more will sell out shortly. If you want to see the show and don't have a ticket yet, you shouldn't wait any longer.

Following is a message from Sammet regarding recent events: 

"Hey folks, thank you for voting for us in the preliminary round for the ESC. It simply wasn't meant to happen, and I guess we achieved as much as you can when you're playing this type of music in Germany these days. It was great fun. But honestly - I am happy to be back in my world now! After all I just received the great news that the album just hit the Greek charts as well and is still climbing there, so the new album has been reaching great chart positions in 18 countries! In Germany we're #11 in the fourth week, this is amazing! And this is because of you! Thank you and see you on the road, you rock!"