Featured Renderings: Rogers/Live Nation Canada
Live Nation Canada has revealed plans for a new seasonal outdoor concert stadium in Toronto, which is slated to open in the summer of 2025.
Rogers Stadium will be based at YZD – formerly Downsview Airport Lands, with the letters representing the airport’s call sign – and will boast a capacity of 50,000.
The land is owned by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s Northcrest Developments, which is leading a redevelopment of the Downsview site with landowner, the federal Crown corporation Canada Lands Company.
The name for the open-air concert venue comes from communications and entertainment company Rogers, which will act as the naming rights partner and exclusive telecommunications sponsor for the venue.
Rogers owns the 39,150-capacity Rogers Centre, which is located in downtown Toronto and is home of Major League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays – also owned by the telco.
Introducing Rogers Stadium, a seasonal outdoor concert venue opening at YZD Toronto (formerly Downsview Airport Lands) in 2025! Built as a unique open-air experience, this will be one of Canada’s newest landmark concert destinations, hosting fans and artists from around the world pic.twitter.com/DHtsRaRovl
— RogersStadium (@Rogers_Stadium) September 26, 2024
According to the Globe and Mail, the purpose-built concert stadium will have a limited lifespan, as Northcrest plans to develop the site at the north end of the former airport runway into residential housing in the coming decades.
It is expected that Rogers Stadium will have seats for 30,000 fans, with the rest standing. It will be shaped as a three-quarter stadium with a removable stage at one end. Live Nation said there are plans to welcome between 12 and 15 performances per year in the summer months, between June and September.
Speaking to the Toronto Star, Erik Hoffman, president of music at Live Nation Canada, said: “We already consider ourselves a top-tier market in North America, but things have changed in the last couple of years.
“There’s an unprecedented number of stadium-level productions on the road, and while we still intend to use the Rogers Centre, they have a very full baseball schedule, so it made sense to ideate a purpose-built concert venue.”
Toronto is set to welcome major tours from the likes of Taylor Swift, who is set to perform six concerts at the Rogers Centre in November. Metallica are also set to head to Toronto, with two shows on April 24 and 26 next year.
Share this