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Artists such as Yungblud and Loyle Carner are set to top the bill at the 12,500-cap ASM Global venue for the first time in 2023
By James Hanley on 27 Jan 2023
OVO Arena Wembley boss John Drury has told IQ he is thrilled by the number of first-time arena headliners stepping up to play the venue.
Artists such as Yungblud and Loyle Carner are scheduled to make their debut headline appearances at the 12,500-cap arena in 2023, which Drury believes is a positive sign for a business as a whole.
“It’s great to have artists coming back and we’ve got those, but it’s also really good to see people coming through to arena level,” he says. “Another new headliner is Joe Hisaishi in September with his two sold-out Studio Ghibli shows. They were first on sale in 2020, but lockdown saw them off. Then he was supposed to be back in August last year, but was confined to his house because of Covid, so people have waited a long time for these shows.”
Drury, who will co-chair the ILMC panel The Venue’s Venue: The cost of live-ing alongside The O2’s Emma Bownes at 10am on 2 March, repeats his assertion that the touring calendar will not fully return to normality in 2024.
“It is still where we are,” he says. “There aren’t as many rescheduled shows now, but as well as Joe Hisaishi, we’ve got Sabaton – who were supposed to play in March last year but postponed – and a couple of others.
“Next year should be as normal a year as 2019 was in terms of the content and the way it comes in. Unless something else odd happens!”
“Next year should be as normal a year as 2019 was in terms of the content and the way it comes in. Unless something else odd happens!”
The ASM Global arena, which hosted around one million fans in 2022 and rounded off the year with a three-night stand by The Cure, also hosts the Heavy Music Awards on 26 May and is enjoying a fruitful run with live editions of podcasts such as That Peter Crouch Podcast’s Crouchfest, which featured a surprise 30-minute performance by Kasabian.
Upcoming shows include The Overlap Live with football pundits Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher and Roy Keane, set for 5 April, and Rob Beckett & Josh Widdicombe’s Parenting Hell (23 April), while other concerts include Black Stone Cherry & The Darkness, All Time Low, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Andre Rieu, Stromae, OneRepublic and Pet Shop Boys.
“It’s feeling strong,” adds Drury, Wembley’s longtime VP and GM. “We’ve all got the same challenges and through lockdowns we have seen there has been a bit of a talent drain across the production and talent side, which has been a concern for everybody. So that’s something we’re working through.
“Covid is still there, but we’re living with it now. But with a war in Ukraine, an energy crisis and the cost of living crisis, we’ve gone from one challenge to another and they are are overlapping a little bit as well. But it affects everybody. and we’re all working through it, so it is where we are.”
“We’ve got the oldest arena in the UK and it highlights what you can do with an old building”
Developer and asset manager Quintain completed the sale of OVO Arena Wembley to Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) last September. The venue, which opened in 1934 as the Empire Pool, also recently successfully completed its Greener Arena certification via A Greener Festival, becoming the oldest arena in the UK to do so.
Since April 2022, the venue has delved into the process via a baseline CO2 analysis and impact assessment, to develop and guide the arena’s strategy towards achieving its sustainability goals, supporting OVO Energy’s commitment to becoming a net-zero business by 2035.
“It’s an interesting process and an important one for us,” says Drury. “Clearly, our naming rights partner OVO Energy has strong sustainability credentials, and our new landlord, ICG, is very big on sustainability. We’ve got the oldest arena in the UK and it highlights what you can do with an old building.”
ASM’s entire portfolio of UK operated venues, which also includes AO Arena Manchester, First Direct Arena Leeds, Utilita Arena Newcastle, P&J Live Aberdeen and Olympia London, will undergo certification as part of a long-term strategy and pledge towards greener operations.
“It’s an ongoing process and no doubt things will change in the next 12 months and we will adapt again,” adds Drury. “It’s just a case of topping it up and keeping the work going.”
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