There’s a brand new venue coming to Toronto, and it will be one of the biggest in the country.
Rogers Stadium will open in summer 2025. At 50,000 capacity, it will also be one of the biggest venues built specifically for music. Despite the stadium designation, the venue will not be home to a sports team, and will not be open during the winter.
Live Nation Canada announced the stadium this morning (Sept. 26) in a press conference attended by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who teased each other about bike lanes and traffic congestion while boasting of the economic impact of the new venue in their speeches.
Rogers Stadium RenderingCourtesy Photo
The venue will be located at YZD, on the site of what used to be the Downsview Airport in North Toronto. Bombardier used the land for an air field, air force base and testing base for aircrafts. In 2018, Bombardier sold the facility to Northcrest Developments and will move its operations to Pearson Airport.
The company is redeveloping the land into mixed-use residential communities, a $30B plan that is slated to take 30 years. In the meantime, the 370-acre site, now called YZD, is being used for a variety of arts, community and other initiatives as part of “Meanwhile Use Strategy.”
Rogers Stadium will be located on 44 acres of the former runway. Live Nation, the biggest music and entertainment promoter in the city, says it is building on the demand for stadium-level tours in Toronto, which is one of the biggest concert markets for major touring acts in North America. The company says the venue will be a mix of stadium-scale shows with a “festival experience.”
Read an interview with Erik Hoffman, president of music at Live Nation Canada, here.
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