EAA adds Europe’s largest indoor arena to membership
The European Arenas Association (EAA) is adding Paris La Défense Arena (cap. 38,000) to its membership.
The arena is the fourth new member to join the association since the easing of restrictions began for live events, and boosts EAA’s membership to 37 arenas across 20 European countries.
Inaugurated in October 2017 in a location 15 minutes away from downtown Paris, the arena is touted as Europe’s largest multifunctional venue with a capacity of 10,000 to up to 38,000 for concerts, sports events and corporate events.
Raphaëlle Plasse, booking and operations director La Défense Arena, says: “La Défense Arena is very pleased to join the EAA. The last 10 years have been more demanding than ever for the venues. All across Europe, venues are facing challenges; sharing these challenges, talking about them and working together to resolve them, are the best way to take control of our actions and development.
“The EAA has always been at the forefront of our sector’s progress. Becoming a member of the EAA means being part of our sector’s development and being able to work together to be the best at what we do.”
“Becoming a member of the EAA means being part of our sector’s development”
Olivier Toth, president at EAA, adds: “We are delighted to welcome Paris La Défense Arena into our association as we continue to embrace new members and to share our collective expertise.
“Our recently published figures are a stark reminder of the devasting impact Covid has had on the live events sector with an average audience reduction of 73% in 2020 and a further 23% reduction in 2021 making it even more important for us to strengthen our membership and work together on our recovery.”
As a result of the Covid-19 closures, the latest EAA research reveals total attendance for member arenas in 2020 fell 73% from 19 million to 5.1m. Last year saw further falls of 23% to 3.9m. The total number of live events fell 59% from 2,915 in 2019 to 1,181 in 2020, although they registered a slight increase of 2% last year to total 1,202.
In 2020, music events accounted for 48% of total events compared to 23% for sports events. At the end of last year, sport accounted for 52% of total events compared to 25% for music events, although music still made up 50% of total audiences compared to 33% for sports.
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