European Stadium Shows Boom But Residencies Could Reshape Future

The rankings of stadiums tell very different stories depending on the metrics used.

On both a ticketing gross level, Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland ($76,497,737) was, by some distance, the heaviest hitter of 2024, and it was in similarly dominant position when looking at the actual number of tickets sold (489,607).

However, Stadio San Siro in Milan, Italy was the only stadium to draw in over half a million fans (524,534) but was ranked in seventh place when looking through the gross revenues lens ($40,742,348). Ticket grosses can deliver very different results depending on the market and, in the context of average consumer spending power, how high pricing can go.

Pollstar’s data all points to a booming market for stadium shows across Europe – and not just in the dominant live markets of Germany, the UK and France. In the rankings, Ireland, Finland, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Poland are all performing well, suggesting the blockbuster tours are covering off increasingly more territories.
Unlike indoor venues, however, stadium shows are hugely seasonal – effectively limited to the summer months of May through to September. As stadiums are primarily sporting venues, concert bookings have to work around sports fixtures. Stadiums, however, are becoming much more efficient in switching from one to the other, thereby making potential booking windows longer.

“Our Lay and Play pitch has been a game changer,” says Paul Smyth, General Manager of Wembley Stadium in London, UK. “Last August we were able to convert the stadium after [Bruce] Springsteen back into football in just seven days. It meant we could host the FA Community Shield football fixture just one week after Bruce, and then convert it back into concert mode for [Taylor Swift’s] ‘Eras Tour’ rolling back in.”

Having highly adaptable venues is becoming increasingly paramount here so that music and sports can better co-exist at the stadium level.

Andrea Santini is manager of Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy. He says 2024 was much quieter than normal for live music at the stadium due to sporting fixtures blocking out bookings until the middle of June, meaning music shows had a much narrower booking slot. In total, the stadium hosted eight shows in 2024, compared to 17 in 2023 and 16 confirmed for 2025. Those eight shows last year were dominated by two acts – Coldplay and Italian singer Ultimo – showing the importance of multi-night bookings at this scale.

Santini says Ultimo has played three shows per year at the venue for the past three years, showing that Italy does not have to rely entirely on international acts to fill stadiums.

That said, he notes that acts like Ed Sheeran, The Rolling Stones and Stray Kids, symbolizing the sharp rise of K-pop, are all booked for this year.

As well as being adaptable for different events, stadiums also have to keep renovating and improving their venues to keep up with rising consumer expectations.

“We are continually looking at ways to improve the stadium and the experience of every customer who sets foot inside,” says Smyth. “That can be through technology advancements or even the general maintenance of a stadium that’s now 18 years old. We never sit still or rest on our laurels. We want to deliver the best experience possible.”

Central to this, he says, is finding ways to make huge stadium shows feel more intimate for fans and to make them feel more valued and not just lost in the crowd. “We have deployed smart phone technology to engage audiences and make them feel part of the show, while we will also be looking to expand the user experience outside the stadium – by improving fan zone areas or having more activations for selected events,” he explains.

Nils Hoch, Deputy General Manager and Head of Event & Sales at Olympiapark in Munich, Germany, says acts like Metallica, AC/DC, Taylor Swift and Coldplay all made for a busy 2024. He notes, however, there is an ongoing financial worry underpinning negotiations for stadium-level acts when they tour as well as growing competition from the mushrooming number of festivals.

“It has become increasingly difficult to get headliners at economically viable conditions,” suggests Hoch. “That’s why it’s important for festivals to have a USP in order to appeal to a very specific target group that doesn’t just come for the music – like the Superbloom Festival in the Olympic Park, for example, which has a very special character.”

Smyth says that in 2025 both Dua Lipa and Lana Del Ray will each headline Wembley for the first time and is not so anxious about the talent pipeline delivering the stadium-fillers of tomorrow. “New acts are always coming through and it takes time before an artist is ready to take that step from a small venue to an arena, to a festival and then a stadium,” he says. “But that has always been the case with any new artist over the last 30 years. I think we actually have a great variety of stadium-ready acts now.”

Nurturing acts who can progress to the stadium level and, crucially, stay there is becoming more complex. Hoch says online virality can help an act go from nowhere to digital ubiquity, but it does not follow that they have the chops to play big shows. The old route of processing up from theatres, to arenas and then to stadiums is still the approach with the greatest potential longevity for acts.

“We are currently seeing a lot of artists who have become very big very quickly through streaming or social media, especially TikTok,” he says. “How sustainable the success of these artists is remains to be seen.”

For Santini, the bigger challenge for stadiums in the coming years is the start of acts doing single-city residencies instead of playing multiple
markets across Europe. This will be more cost-effective for the acts, but could see stadiums become more cutthroat as they all compete against each other here.

“The next tour of Coldplay or Taylor Swift in Europe [might only] visit ten cities or five cities – and my feeling is that these artists are visiting fewer cities and doing more shows in each city,” he says. “It [will be] more of a challenge between the major arenas in Europe to attract such big events.”