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Arena Market: Brazil

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For most of the ‘00s and ’10s, Latin America had just a handful of indoor arenas consisting of the Coliseo de Puerto Rico, Chile’s Movistar Arena in Santiago, and one or two vintage venues.

But in recent years, the region has been slowly piecing together a routable chain of modern arenas: Uruguay has a new ASM Global arena, the 10,000-capacity Antel Arena in Montevideo, opened in 2018; so does Buenos Aires, with the 15,000-cap Movistar Arena, which opened in late 2019 and now does a roaring trade.

All of these are excellent additions to the touring map, but the jewel in the crown is still on its way: a 20,000-cap arena in São Paulo – a monster of a city with a population of 12.4m and, whisper it, no indoor arena. Live Nation, Oak View Group, and GL Events are the ones taking the initiative, promising a state-of-the-art building designed for live events including concerts, sport, family entertainment, and more, located in São Paulo’s Anhembi District, where the carnival parade takes place.

“São Paulo doesn’t have an indoor arena at all, which is hard to believe”

The new-build addresses a remarkable omission, Wesley Cullen, Oak View Group vice president of international venue development told ILMC’s Globetrotters Guide in February.

“São Paulo doesn’t have an indoor arena at all, which is hard to believe,” she said. “It’s the fourth-largest city in the world and the largest in this hemisphere; the wealthiest city in Latin America. It is illogical not to have an arena – but it doesn’t even have an old one. So, it is really nice to have the opportunity to fill a void in the market and offer something new to fans and performers.”

No details have yet been released about the new arena’s detailed USP, but Cullen has promised the arena will be music-forward, with no sports team initially in residence, and with sustainability at the top of the agenda. “This will be the greatest arena in Latin America, with a design worthy of the city and location,” she said.

The launch date, too, remains under wraps, but there is little doubt of how much a São Paulo arena has to offer the city, the country, and the region, offering arena opportunities to non-stadium acts who might otherwise have skipped Brazil.

“That will be a game-changer. To me, that has been the most important development over the last five years – new arenas in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and São Paulo in the near future.

“I’m excited about OVG’s plans to build an arena in São Paulo – at last,” said Move Concerts CEO Phil Rodriguez earlier this year. “That will be a game-changer. To me, that has been the most important development over the last five years – new arenas in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and São Paulo in the near future. It really was unbelievable that five years ago most of the major markets in the region did not have newer indoor arenas.”

Less celebrated but still apparently in the pipeline, is another potential São Paulo arena at the Cidade Center Norte shopping centre complex, helmed by property developer Baumgart Group and Allianz Parque operator WTorre Entretenimento, though the timeframe is a reasonably long one. A public-private partnership to revitalise Ginásio do Ibirapuera, the once-mighty 1950s sport and concert arena, is also on the cards, with a planned investment of R$850m.

A little smaller, in São Paulo’s Santo Amaro neighbourhood, is the 7,000-cap Vibra São Paulo – once Credicard Hall – which reopened in 2022 under new operator Opus Entretenimento and remains exceptionally busy. And also last year, Grupo São Paulo Eventos’s Espaço das Américas in Barra Funda, west of São Paulo, was renamed Espaço Unimed, with an 8,000 capacity; Caetano Veloso, 5 Seconds of Summer, and Marisa Monte are among those that will be there this summer.

Huge and diverse, Brazil boasts numerous cities of relevance to local, regional, and international artists, and if its venue options are sometimes antiquated, modernity is also increasingly mingling in.

Modern indoor arena or not, São Paulo is the major music market in the biggest music country in South America. Huge and diverse, Brazil boasts numerous cities of relevance to local, regional, and international artists, and if its venue options are sometimes antiquated, modernity is also increasingly mingling in.

GL Events’ 18,000-capacity Jeunesse Arena, a former Olympic venue completed in 2007, is the key arena in Rio; Alicia Keys, Imagine Dragons, Harry Styles, Arctic Monkeys, J Balvin, and Slipknot have all touched down in the past year, with Styles and Imagine Dragons outside in the 30,000-cap Área Externa.

Also in Rio is Time 4 Fun’s 8,423-cap Qualistage arena in Barra da Tijuca, formerly the ATL/Citibank/KM de Vantagens Hall, where Gilberto Gil and Måneskin are some of this year’s highlights.

On the increasingly internationally accessible broader Brazilian circuit, are Fortaleza’s 17,100-cap Centro de Eventos do Ceará; the vintage 14,586-cap Ginásio Gigantinho and the mid-size 5,500-cap Pepsi on Stage in Porto Alegre; the 5,000-cap outdoor Concha Acústica do Teatro Castro Alves auditorium in Salvador; the 11,105-cap Ginásio Nilson Nelson in the capital, Brasilia; and the Classic Hall in the north- eastern city of Olinda.

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