Toronto's New Venue Rogers Stadium Shows The City's Status As a Top Touring Destination
The new 50,000 capacity venue in North Toronto was inspired by increased demand for the biggest tours in the world, says Live Nation Canada's president of music, Erik Hoffman — and one specific artist coming next year.
On Thursday (Sept. 26), Live Nation and Northcrest Developments announced Rogers Stadium, the new 50,000 capacity outdoor venue in Toronto opening in June 2025. The venue will instantly become one of the biggest in Canada, with a slightly higher capacity than Toronto's other stadium, Rogers Centre (home of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team). It's also one of the world's few venues of the size that isn't also home to a sports team.
After the press conference, Billboard Canada spoke to Erik Hoffman, president of music at Live Nation Canada, about why they decided to open the venue and why now. Hoffman says the decision was inspired by a specific artist who otherwise might have skipped Toronto, and also reveals that the entire 2025 slate of concerts is already booked. He says to expect some big show announcements to come.
Read more on the venue here.
Toronto has a stadium of comparable size in the Rogers Centre. What made you decide to open up Rogers Stadium?
The idea came from [working with] a major artist who we were very frustrated that we couldn't find dates to work. They were just going to bypass Toronto on their world tour. We've been in active dialogue for about eight months, but this was a solve for a specific artist that then grew into a much bigger thing.
Is that one of the shows you're going to announce for next year?
It most certainly will be. We have almost the full slate booked for the 2025 season. It's going to be about 12 to 15 shows. And that's in addition to all the shows we're doing at Rogers Centre. It'll be the biggest year we've ever had in stadium-level touring. By far. It's the kind of acts that you would traditionally see at an NFL stadium in the U.S. or the Rogers Centre here. The biggest acts in the world, and some of them setting up for multiple days.
How would you choose between booking a show here versus Rogers Centre?
In some cases it's obvious because we're going to start our season there in April or even a little earlier next year and [the venue is] covered, so that answers it for us. But it's more about giving options for the artists. Some artists prefer to be open air. Some have roof elements that they need for part of their production. But honestly a lot of it is going to be about dates, because they play baseball over there [at the Rogers Centre]. They've got a full schedule. We fit in concerts in between, but this allows us a lot more flexibility.
You've said part of the decision is because there's more demand for these huge stadium-level shows. Why is that?
If the fans weren't coming, they wouldn't stage shows that big. Not to dumb it down too much, but if they keep selling out stadium shows you do more stadium shows. And I just think a lot of these artists have gotten so creative with how they present their music that the show caliber has just gone crazy. There are some acts that feel like they're born for the big stage. When we were younger you'd be happy to see a lot of lights and some hopefully hear something that sounded okay in a big setting. Now it's so sophisticated, they're truly like theatrical productions. And so it's very, very popular.
Everyone at the press conference talked about Toronto becoming one of the top destinations for world tours. How did that come to be?
Culturally, there are a lot of cool things going on here. It's multicultural. There are a lot of languages spoken here. [One of] the first stadium shows for a South Asian artist outside of India was Diljit Dosanjh at the Rogers Centre. It didn't happen in the U.K. It didn't happen in L.A. And so between K-pop and Punjabi and Latin music [becoming so globally popular], there's so much interest in massive acts that aren't just big rock bands and big pop shows. There will be a number of shows that play here that are only here, or have very few tour stops in a venue this size in the rest of the world.
There aren't a lot of venues this size that aren't home to a sports team.
It's the whole idea. It felt like time that we go music first.
