International Stadium Business Is Booming (VenuesNow Conference Recap)

Like their stateside counterparts, business at international stadiums is on the rise

During the Global Stadium Booking Update held Wednesday during VenuesNow Conference ’25, panelists discussed the outlook for stadium programming and development across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Mexico.

Moderator Gary Hutchinson, EVP Global Touring and Content for Oak View Group (Pollstar’s parent company), kicked things off on a positive note recapping highlights from the past year including four sold out Coldplay shows in Abu Dhabi in a stadium that hadn’t been used for music since 2008, and 36 shows at five stadiums in the U.K. with a combined 1.4 million people through the gates. Hitting its stride since opening in 2024, Co-op Live in Manchester hosted multi-night appearances by Drake, Billie Eilish, Chris Brown and Bruce Springsteen.

“The stadium circuit’s never been as busy,” he told the audience.

A sentiment that was echoed by panelists including Iain Campbell, President Middle East Africa and Asia for OVG; Laura Chiplin, Director of Stadium Events and Attractions Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, outside London; Fernanda Martínez, head of communications and PR for Mexican concert promoter OCESA; and Patrik Meyer, Managing Director Eintracht Frankfort Stadion GmbH.

Campbell outlined rapid growth in the Middle East.

“It’s a new market in many ways,” he said. “OVG, we’re involved in about 30 venues to now 17 stadiums. But I think more interesting is the development part. We’ve got 46 new venues in our pipeline. They’re all brand new venues. Saudi itself is building over 100 venues.”

Campbell cited an example: one of five “giga projects” – King Salman Park in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is designed to be the world’s largest urban park with museums, sporting facilities and green spaces covering 16-square kilometers.

Chiplin shared updates from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which opened in 2019 and hosts both styles of football as home field for the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and home turf for the NFL in the UK.

“The stadium has been specifically designed to host NFL games and really be as diverse as possible,” explained Chiplin. “We host international rugby events, championship boxing events, have great artists in concert. So really maximizing our major events.”

In addition to events, the facility features a range of visitor attractions including stadium tours and the Dare Skywalk and Dare Skywalk Edge, which is a roof walk experience where guest scale the roof of the stadium. The most recent addition was F1 Drive London, which made the venue the first official F1 in-stadium karting facility.

“It’s really about maximizing the use of the stadium through major events and through the visitor attractions, and it’s very much part of the commercial operating model for the stadium,” continued Chiplin.

A 20-year veteran at the stadium, Meyer was equally focused on program diversity. The first stadium on the site opened in 1925 and the current Deutsche Bank Park, which is owned by the city, debuted in 2005.

“From the beginning on, we had the approach to do as many events as possible, maximize revenue,” said Meyer.

In Pollstar’s current Top 10 Venues of the Month and the No. 1 grossing stadium in the Germany at $64,323,374, the venue booked watch parties for the German national team, the Dalai Lama and the world’s largest handball competition before a touring boom post pandemic. This summer the venue hosted 16 concerts including the world’s largest rock concert with 1,200 musicians on the pitch.

“It’s concerts, concerts, concerts,” according to Meyer.

Martínez represented Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros on the panel. The 65,000-cap stadium just celebrated its first anniversary and is already the No. 1 stadium in the world according to Pollstar’s Q3 data with a gross of $203,060,331. OCESA is expanding operations and recently opened a 40K-cap, multi-purpose venue in Bogotá, Columbia.

“We are having a great moment in Latin America right now,” offered Martínez.

That’s not to say that international venue development doesn’t have challenges including the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia is building six venues for the World Cup, Bahrain has two under construction and Qatar which has built a number of stadiums for the Qatar World Cup.

“It is challenging,” said Campbell. “You can’t just take that typical European or U.S. model for a stadium and pluck it down in the Middle East. It just doesn’t work. And the reason for that, a lot of it’s around culture and the weather has huge impacts on what we do.”

With temperatures during the summer concert season over 120 degrees, it’s necessary to explore retractable roofs, additional hospitality space, retractable pitches, parking proximity and shaded walkways.

“It’s not just cooling the bowl, you’ve got to cool the pitch as well because you’ve got to stick 10,000 people on there [during a concert],” Campbell said. “It’s difficult, but with every challenge, there’s solutions.”

Cultural considerations are just as important.

“We’ve got to work incredibly hard because there’s no alcohol, right? We do an event in Abu Dhabi, and we can hit $26 a head on just on alcohol. But in Saudi Arabia, you’ve got zero, so you’ve got to work harder with the merchandise. You’ve got to work harder on the food courts. You’ve got to give them other experiences there to fill their time when they’re not sitting on a drink.”

At Tottenham Hotspur, they have doubled their event license capacity to host 30 major, non-football events from 16. They typically accommodate 50K for concerts and have leaned into residencies including Beyoncé with five nights in 2023 and six nights in 2025.

 “It takes us 36 hours to convert the stadium from football into concert mode or NFL,” explained Chiplin. “So, we are really leaning into that flexibility. We’re really pushing the boundaries of that now we have a little bit more experience.”

Tottenham is also flexible on the retail end. During a two-night Stray Kids run, the stadium utilized its large club shop and converted F&B space to sell merchandise.

“K-Pop is kind of off the chart in terms of the numbers so there was a lot of planning and prep with our retail team to see how we could maximize that in our store and converting units in the stadium,” said Chiplin.

 Without a full-time tenant to work around since it opened Seguros has been able to program impressive run of 60 shows a year, including 12 with Shakira and appearances by Metallica, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga.

“Latin America is leading, a historic moment,” said Martínez. “You have amazing artists, Latin American artists Shakira, Bad Bunny, making this a hot region for all the world.”

As people discover Mexico as a vibrant concert market, Martinez sees potential growth in Monterrey, Guadalajara and the country’s secondary markets including Mérida, Puebla and Tijuana. “This secondary market, the cities that don’t have these enormous shows, they are a great example of how this is evolving,” offered Martínez, adding that it could be fodder for a future conference. “And maybe, maybe here next year, we can talk about another entertainment circuit.”