Live Nation Canada’s Erik Hoffman Talks New, 50,000-Capacity Temporary Toronto Stadium Opening With Stray Kids, Coldplay Concerts

Ahead of Coldplay’s four sold-out shows this week at the brand-new temporary open-air Rogers Stadium in Toronto’s north end, Live Nation Canada was working with city officials to fine-tune logistical kinks at the 50,000-capacity space following some complaints on opening-night at k-pop band Stray Kids June 29 with some fans saying they were stuck for as long as two hours leaving the grounds and other complained of lack of water stations and shaded areas.

“Moving 50,000 people in and out of a site is never simple, especially on opening night where you’re still fine-tuning,” Live Nation Canada president of music Erik Hoffman told Pollstar after the Stray Kids opening-night concert. “That said, it’s not something we take lightly. We’ve done a full debrief with all our partners and have already been adjusting plans. It’s also just about setting expectations. At an event of this scale, there’s always going to be some wait times, but the goal is to make the process as smooth and safe as possible. The foundation is strong, now it’s about tweaking the details.”

While onsite parking is limited to prepaid accessible spaces, there are three nearby subway stations offering free rides home for all 14 Rogers Stadium concerts, which includes Coldplay – July 7, 8, 11, 12; Blackpink – July 22-23; Chris Brown – Aug. 19-20; Oasis – Aug. 24-25; System of a Down & Deftones – Sept. 3 & 5; and Hozier – Sept. 10.

Ride share drop-off/pick up is encouraged on the grounds. 

“We’ve made key adjustments based on fan and community feedback, including updated traffic plans with road closures, more traffic personnel on site, and enhanced signage and communication to help improve the experience for fans and community,” read a statement.

For the space, Live Nation Canada has leased 55 of the 370 acres owned by Northcrest Developments, a subsidiary of Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which purchased the former Downsview Airport Lands from Bombardier in 2018 with ambitious plans to redevelop it into an “urban development” for a reported CAD$30 billion. With the ground-breaking still a ways away, it was a perfect opportunity for Live Nation to build a venue capable of hosting some of the blockbuster, high-capacity touring productions in a city whose largest active concert venue, the Rogers Centre baseball stadium, is often unavailable during summer months. 

While the two opening night concerts themselves went off without a hitch, issues at the unfamiliar site left many fans complaining of the crowded and lengthy exit time after Stray Kids, and led to playful quips from Coldplay singer Chris Martin on stage, who appreciated and encouraged fans for bearing with the band after a slight opening delay at a “weird” stadium “in the middle of nowhere,” although he also said he was having the best Monday of his life.

On opening night, Hoffman, who says he plans to attend all the shows at Rogers Stadium this season, said he was struck by the energy of fans entering the venue.

“I was running around quite a bit, but made a point to get out into the crowd,” he said. “You could really feel the energy as people came through the gates.  There was this sense of discovery that was really cool to watch. For a lot of people, this wasn’t just a concert, it was an experience.”

He says fans seemed to love the on-site Ferris wheel.  “It became a bit of a landmark; you could see folks using it as a meeting point or just taking it all in from up there. It’s one of those fun elements that makes the space feel more like a festival than just a venue, which is what we were going for.”

Hoffman shared more on the venue’s construction, design and intention ahead of opening night. 

Pollstar: So, at least part of the idea for this stadium came because it looked like Toronto was going to miss out on Coldplay dates. 
Erik Hoffman:   We had this great frustration around Coldplay, that they were going to be on a three-year global tour then not hit Toronto. The baseball schedule [at Rogers Centre], the windows are small, other than one exception, All-Star, and you can only fit in about two shows and the way that Coldplay paces no more than that. And those dates weren’t lining up. We had resigned ourselves to the idea that we were screwed. 

This is last year, at the end of a call with global tour promoter [Jared Braverman] for Coldplay that works with us, said, “Can’t you just build us a stadium?” He was kind of half-joking. Then, we started to ideate the whole concept because you have to have a lot of stars align — you have subway stations surrounding a big open spot on a new development, but this development wasn’t going to be developed at the north end of the runway for a very long time — and then it was like, “Are we ready to take on this level of investment and work scope because it’s incredible amount?” It’s the biggest project we’ve ever taken on. 

Are you able to tell us the cost? 
It’s many millions of dollars. You would never do this for (only) four Coldplay shows, for example; you wouldn’t do it for one season.  It was a tremendous investment and continues to be. It’s not even avoiding the question; it’s very expensive. Also, there’s a bunch of costs that are per show and there’s a bunch of season costs. 

Rogers Stadium has 14 shows, which is a strong number for a stadium venue of that size. 
We’re very thankful the sell-through rate is very strong, further validating what we needed in Toronto. Although we have a record season in stadium touring at the Rogers Centre, there’s no way we would have done Coldplay. There’s no way we would have been an Oasis stop. We wouldn’t have done System Of A Down with Deftones, they picked three cities. It’s done two things:  it gets us a capacity that’s a bit bigger than the baseball park and here’s versatility here on how productions come in and out that’s made it quite easy because we’re music-first; there’s no sports team in the way.

And Rogers Centre underwent a CAD$300 million plus renovation, largely to better serve baseball fans and teams.
A hundred percent, but this isn’t an anti-Rogers Centre thing. We will still do shows there. With the renovation, which is for a better fan experience, it took some seats away as well.

So, this is 50,000-ish, depending on the configuration of the stage and seating configuration. (Rogers Centre) is 34,000 in the grandstands and various floor capacities. It’s a big difference. 

So, it allows for us to get tours that would play not in ballparks in the U.S., but in NFL stadiums in the U.S. It also allows all of our back houses in one spot; we have all the amenities for the artists in one area because we’re only thinking about music. There’s no second-class citizen behind sports. So, it’s not just about the technical side of why that’s awesome; it’s also because it’s a mindset and artists really pick up on that. 

There’s a reason why, if you walked through the Fan Plaza, you saw Stray Kids flags up. I was a little crazy about this — and this is one of the only times that “I” use I instead of “we” — because I believe that we are the home team, like when you go into Rogers Centre for the Blue Jays or Scotiabank Arena for the Raptors and Leafs, music is going into somebody else’s house. You’re constantly reminded as a musician or crew, by looking around you, it’s celebrating basketball and hockey and baseball. But in this place, there’s no sports; we’re going to change out every flag for every show here. That’s the concept. So when you put that out there in the world, not just for fans, but for the artists, the mindset is “It’s about us.”

Pollstar: We’ve seen a few temporary venue solutions recently but the only thing close to this scale was the Adele In Munich venue, which also involved Live Nation. Did you borrow some of that idea for the Toronto project? 
No, it became inspiration. The timeline is this: before I was aware and they had announced in Germany the Adele concept. It’s purposely built for her, for one artist. 

It’s not the same concept because it was built with a very low rake and fanned out, like a beautifully massive theater for 80,000. It wasn’t traditional; the rake on the seats weren’t the same as an NFL stadium. 

What we’ve done at Rogers Stadium is basically three-quarters of a bowl of like an NFL-level stadium or a big soccer pitch. When we went there, we absolutely did find inspiration. They did an unbelievable job.

We weren’t going to do the same thing. We got inspiration and definitely spoke about how they did a bunch of things. They gave us a bunch of very helpful information, some things that we took into consideration.

Like what?
Specifically, the way that they ideated their food and beverage pods in The Fan Plaza. When you’re at a festival, there’s people in golf carts replenishing things and it can be a little chaotic. These are all self-contained, where you have refrigeration, you have staff areas, you have toilets all inside these individual pods that are all tucked away and hidden and that way, during the show, they’re set. It’s a much cleaner look and there’s less commercial traffic moving back and forth within The Fan Plaza.  Also, they had themes, like “Adele World,” so we ideated our own version in some areas. Rogers Park and Vista Corona are open spaces where fans can take in a street-level, festival-like vibe, with food and beverage options throughout, plus a Ferris wheel that’s free to ride. There’s also Rogers Replay, a pretty cool first-of-its-kind activation where fans can create personalized recap videos that blend professional event footage with their own content captured around the stadium. Then you’ve got the Amex and Birkenstock lounges, which offer a more contemporary atmosphere for fans who want to reserve a spot and hang out in a space that feels more exclusive but still relaxed.

It’s a good way to stagger people into the venue, if they come at 4 p.m. to hang, ride the Ferris wheel, buy some merch, watch the band on the emerging stage.
You’re not going to Wembley [Stadium in London] by car. You’re not going to Yankee Stadium by your car. We’re trying to do the best of both worlds where you go to a festival and you have other things to do and it’s fun. It’s not singular about the hour and a half that you’re there for the headliner. So, this is what we’ve tried to accomplish by having a Fan Plaza ahead of opening the bowl. 

Is the merch, food etcetera all shipping containers?
Yes, they’re shipping containers painted beautifully. 

Who designed it?
The company’s called BaAM. They were the constructor and creative design for the site. It’s run by a Canadian woman Annemarie [Roe]. They built Field of Dreams [in Iowa] for Major League Baseball. We worked with them on design because the container thing, for example, isn’t what happened in Germany. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. We went with that design because they seal up very nice.

The venue is coming down for the winter. Was the ease of dismantling and storage and how it can be reassembled for next year an important consideration for the design and materials?
A hundred percent. That’s exactly it. It was absolutely a consideration. That’s why you’ve seen some larger city fairs not as well designed, they’re not as pretty, but these containers have been great for that and great for art.

Will whatever is coming down go into the old airplane hangars? 
TBD. We’re determining how much it’s going to come down at the end of the season because this infrastructure. It is temporary but was a tremendous investment and there’s a lot of things happening behind the scenes that are not as easily backed up. So, we’ll determine at the end of the season how much will be disassembled and how much of it will stay here. We will start rebuilding elements of it early into the year, depending on weather, but we will push the season earlier to match what Budweiser Stage is. So, I’ll have shows in late May here next year.

How long is the lease?
We’ll definitely be here for three years and then we’ll have an option after that. 

Would it ever be permanent, worked into Northcrest’s redevelopment plans?
Here’s what I would say, Nathalie [Burri, VP of venues & operations, Live Nation Canada] is next level. She has assembled people that have pulled off the biggest things that we do from all over the world. It’s an all-star team of event organizers to put this together. We need to get this going before we think about what’s next. It’s very Canadian to be like, “What are we gonna do when it’s gone?” (laughs). It’s here right now. I’m going to have so many things to say to you after this season.