FYI
FYI Music News Holiday Schedule
This is our final newsletter for 2018 and readers can expect our first in the new year to appear in their in-boxes on Wednesday, Jan. 2.
Dec 28, 2018
advertisement
advertisement
Popular
Latest News
advertisement
advertisement
advertisement
Touring
Inside Rogers Stadium, Toronto's Biggest Music Venue
Sitting in an office in a temporary trailer just outside the stadium bowl, Wayne Zronik, Live Nation Canada's president of business operations, feels ready to open the doors and welcome fans in.
"We've had a great team on this from the beginning. BaAM Productions and Nathalie Burri, who's leading the project for us, have built these kinds of significant large-scale events before, so we have great confidence," he says.
advertisement
Since Live Nation unveiled plans for Rogers Stadium at YZD (formerly Downsview Airport Lands) last September, anticipation has been high. Fans have camped outside the grounds, making TikToks, trying to get a glimpse of the stadium to see if it would be open in time for the concert.
Riding through on a recent rainy day, we could see it's nearly there. The blue bleacher-style seats are set up in the four sides surrounding the stage, and it's easy to picture the bowl filled with the 50,000 fans who will occupy it soon.
Though the capacity is 50,000 (and sometimes more, depending on configuration), it's actually only 32,000 seats. The rest – between 16,000 and 20,000 – is floor seating and general admission standing tickets. That's considerably more than any baseball stadium or hockey arena (like Toronto's Rogers Centre and Scotiabank Arena) or even an NFL or European football stadium.
With its open and spacious concrete environment, Rogers Stadium in some ways feels more like a summer music festival site than a typical sports venue that hosts concerts.
That's closer to what it is, since no sports teams will play there. It's purpose-built solely for music, which is rare for music venues this size but becoming more of a reality as the mega-concert market expands.
advertisement
"We like to say we're bringing the best of the festival experience collectively with the stadium experience," says Zronik.
A Purpose-Built Music Venue
Rarely is a stadium built with music in mind, so Live Nation and its partners have been able to focus on fan and artist experience first, making sure there are good sightlines and amenities for both fans and talent backstage.
The venue is temporary, both seasonally – as it will only be open during the summer – and in the long-term. Since the land is owned by Northcrest Developments to eventually be redeveloped into residential and retail space, the stadium will only be there for five to six years. Rogers Stadium came together quickly and out of necessity.
As Live Nation Canada president of music Erik Hoffman explained in our cover story for Billboard Canada Power Players (he was named the Power Player of the Year alongside his colleagues Riley O'Connor and Melissa Bubb-Clarke), the idea came when the company couldn't find a venue big enough and available enough for Coldplay to bring its giant Music of the Spheres tour to the city.
advertisement
So they built one. Now, Coldplay will be the second act to play Rogers Stadium, playing four nights: July 7, 8, 11 and 12.
Zronik says they knew they could pull it off because Live Nation has done it before in other markets. He cites large-scale events like the temporary 75,000 capacity venue in Munich that housed Adele's residency last year as well as the FivePoint Amphitheater in Irvine, California, which existed for six years before reaching its planned end date.
"Festivals are great multi-day events. They drive a lot of economic impact for the communities in which they operate. They're great vehicles to expose artists," he says. "But at the same time, they're a huge undertaking. It's three days or so, and you build it all up and you take it down. This is a bit different than that. You can leave the infrastructure for a few months and use it for multiple shows, which allows you to benefit from the scale of it."
advertisement
While there was some skepticism from fans that there would be enough major acts to fill a stadium for the whole summer, they've already exceeded expectations. Zronik says there will be 27 stadium shows cumulatively between Rogers Centre and Rogers Stadium this summer, where Toronto typically does just 5-10. Hoffman says more than half a million tickets have been sold for the new venue.
There will be 15 concerts at Rogers Stadium this summer, including artists with multiple shows (Blackpink, Oasis, Chris Brown, System of a Down & Deftones each have two). And the build of the venue was made to accommodate them.
Rogers Stadium during a rainy walkthrough in 2025.Courtesy Photo
"The really exciting part of this project for us is we were able to build this from the ground up," says Nathalie Burri, VP of operations at Live Nation Canada & executive producer of Rogers Stadium. "So any difficulties when we bring artists and concerts into sports facilities, we were able to keep top of mind. We really wanted to focus on fan, artist and staff experience on this site."
The backstage artist compound was built out based on all of the artists' riders. There's space for production offices, catering, laundry and showers, gyms, basketball courts, ping pong and foosball tables, even a soundproof recording studio. (Artists can't leave once they're at the venue, so the idea was to give them everything they could need.)
advertisement
Coldplay has strict requirements for sustainability at their concerts, which went into the build of the venue itself.
"Sustainability is actually a massive focus for us," Burri says. The venue has eliminated single-use plastics, with all drink containers reusable or aluminum. There's a large waste-sorting area. And, maybe most importantly, the company is encouraging fans to arrive by public transit.
Free Public Transit
There are 11,000 nearby parking spots along line 1 of the subway and at York University, but the venue is a 10 minute walk from Downsview Park subway station and GO Train stop. In a press conference after the media tour, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow announced that subway service would be free from Downsview Park station after every show, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that there will also be free GO Train service, both courtesy of Live Nation. Both the TTC and Metrolinx will also operate additional service on concert days to accommodate large crowds.
There will be upwards of 1500 staff working at any given time, and many come from nearby neighbourhoods. Burri says the venue held three local job fairs and hired many staff from the area. She recognizes some nearby residences have concerns about noise and parking, and says Live Nation has been working with the local city councillor James Pasternak and Toronto police to mitigate concerns. All concerts will end strictly at 11 pm, and some nearby streets will be limited to local traffic.
advertisement
"We recognize we may be a nuisance to some people, but we also are trying to give back to our local community," she says.
Concessions are run by Oak View Group and Liberty Entertainment Group, and include local food trucks and other local touches like Randy's Patties. There are food services throughout the venue, including in the bowl itself, plus 600 flushable washrooms. There are 12 VIP indoor/outdoor suites below the bowl seats, and other VIP lounges throughout.
There's also a fan plaza complete with ferris wheel and kids games, dedicated merch areas and a special SiriusXM stage for emerging artists to play before events. Those acts will be matched to the genre of the show, with Canadian singer Sophie Powers playing it first at 5:30 pm on Sunday before Stray Kids. For that show, 4,000 fans have received special wristbands to shop merch early (one way to keep fans from camping out).
All of the furnishings are modular and temporary, so they can be removed at the end of the season. The company has also implemented safety measures, like extra shade areas, free water stations, wind and water resistant structures and concrete blocks to keep out vehicles. All concerts will go on rain or shine.
Title sponsor Rogers has invested $5.2 million to install 5G technology offering coverage equivalent to 14 downtown towers. Live Nation is touting an estimated $80-$100 million injected into the local economy through the venue through tourism, local business support and more.
For Zronik, the venue represents a broader overall business strategy for Live Nation Canada – not just stadium-sized venues, but more infrastructure to put on shows of all sizes all throughout Canada. That includes the upcoming History venue in Ottawa, the new TD Coliseum in Hamilton (Live Nation is the "content partner" to Oak View Group, who owns the venue) and venues throughout the country in bigger and smaller markets. But Toronto is a natural centrepiece, because it's become one of the biggest touring markets in North America.
"Where the infrastructure doesn't exist to bring artists to tour and to bring fans to see a great show, we'll invest in that," says Zronik. "We’re going to do that wherever we think that there's a need. That’s really our mission, to support artists and to bring thousands of shows across the country."
advertisement
Popular
advertisement