As previously reported, ALICE COOPER's concert scheduled for Tampere, Finland in December has been shifted to Espoo because of concerns over his shock-rock image.

Alice Cooper news site SickThingsUK has issued the following update:

The banned December 11th show in Tampere, Finland has now been relocated to the Barona Arena, in Espoo, a suburb of Helsinki. As this is around 110 miles from the original venue residents of Tampere will be offered a discount on tickets "in recognition of the great distance they must travel to catch the show."

From the official press release:

"While critics and fans, clearly, have no problem with Alice’s over-the-top spectacle, a venue operator in Tampere, Finland has put the kibosh on Alice’s scheduled performance at Tampere Arena originally set for December 11th. After a legal contract was consummated with Kalle Keskinen of Speed Promotion, a local concert promoter, Alice’s management were informed that the organization that owns and operates the facility, which typically hosts hockey games, is based on “Christian values” and will not permit performances which may be construed as insulting to Christianity, spelled out as follows: “Performances including representation of false gods, demons, evilness and forces of darkness and all these kind of symbols, words or markings are highly prohibited. These rules are valid also in all of the advertisement and material related to the concert. Breaking this rule causes immediate cancellation of the contract, and a 100,000 € penalty fee.”

Harri Wiherkoski, managing director of Tampere Areena Oy (Tampere Arena Limited) noted, "Artists who express suspicious values from Christianity's point of view cannot be allowed to perform at the venue." He told a Finnish reporter "We don't arrange concerts where Satanism or non-god-worshipping occurs."

Cooper’s management and the concert’s promoters have been forced to relocate the show to Barona Arena in Espoo, a western suburb of Helsinki, 110 miles south of Tampere. Residents of Tampere will be offered a discount on tickets in recognition of the great distance they must travel to catch the show.

Management for Alice issued the following statement: “We hope fans from Tampere denied access to these ‘suspicious values’ can come to Helsinki and make their own judgment. What’s really ‘suspicious’ to us is the act of judging something that one has never seen, heard or, otherwise, experienced. There’s nothing like an open mind and, clearly, Mr. Wiherkoski has nothing like one.”

When he was asked to comment on the Tampere imbroglio, Alice Cooper turned the other cheek."