What's the attraction for large concerts in Moncton, NB Canada? Where do the people come from? It's a small city that looks like it's not close to anywhere large, yet The Stones (89,000+) and other big names have played there to big crowds. AC/DC is the next one set to play, I expect to at least 50K.

As a Canadian living on the West Coast, I kind of wondered the same thing. I guess it's fairly central in the Maritimes and there's lots of room. Can draw fans from the North East US as well as Eastern Canada. Perhaps similar to why Woodstock, not a huge city.
Seems that there are more festivals being held now a days. Just north of Vancouver, there was the Pemberton Music Festival and Squamish Music Festival, both drew tens of thousands of people this past month.

The answer to most questions on this site: Money.

When you have access to taxpayer dollars, you can book whoever you want. It seems the city fathers of Halifax and Moncton are outbidding each other to enrich our rock 'n' roll heroes:

[www.halifaxexaminer.ca]

I live in Maine, and to get to Moncton you have to drive approximately 4.5 hours, from the Canadian border alone, which is 3.5 hours upstate ("downeast") from my midcoast home town. Big Moncton shows draw fans from Maine, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and rural New Brunswick, as well as Quebec probably, and transient tourists from elsewhere. It is a rare, special event (note that the Stones have not played there since the one time, how many years ago?). People will come out of the woods for a rare chance to see a show they don't need a plane ticket for.

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note that the Stones have not played there since the one time, how many years ago?

Moncton, September 2005.
Halifax, September 2006.

I good friend of mine grew up in Moncton. He still does not understand why they got the show up there. But everybody was crazy about it back then and it's still something people talk about.

Because they hate me. Only reason that makes sense... (I've been to Moncton, obviously I took this a little personally...)

The Stones love playing new places to fans that have never seen them before. The Stones coming to Moncton was a huge once in a life time event, not to be missed, and local (even if it meant a 300+ mile drive) fans knew it. The crowd, estimated somewhere between 80,000 and 90,000, simply overwhelmed the town. Hotels and motels were sold out within 100 mile radius. As far as the concert itself it was simply outstanding. On average, the crowd was much younger and way more energetic, than any of the US Bigger Bang shows I saw. Of course the band picked up on this and fed off the crowd's amazing energy. For many people this was there first (and maybe only time) they would ever get to see the Rolling Stones live in concert. I really enjoyed the Moncton Stones concert looking out over the immense crowd while standing in the onstage boxes.