Wembley Stadium hails “another incredible summer”
Saturday 6 July saw the Who bring the curtain down on the biggest-ever summer of concerts at Wembley Stadium in London.
Over the space of five weeks the 90,000-capacity stadium hosted 14 concerts, with 38 acts playing to some 900,000 fans. That’s down slightly on the more than one million predicted by stadium bosses before the summer, but still a new record.
K-pop sensations BTS kicked things off with two sold-out shows on 1 and 2 June as part of their Love Yourself world tour, with 140,000 fans also streaming the show live globally. Capital’s Summertime Ball festival took place the weekend after, followed by the much-hyped Spice Girls reunion shows, which saw 240,000 fans attend over three nights.
“We look forward to another exciting summer of music next year”
Other headline shows included the newly Lindsey Buckingham-less Fleetwood Mac, who played two nights, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel and Eagles, who played one night each from 21 to 23 June, Pink, who played two nights, and the Who, who rounded off the summer season with support from Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder.
James Taylor, Wembley’s senior commercial manager for concerts, comments: “It’s been another incredible summer of music at Wembley Stadium. We are privileged to have hosted such a diverse set of artists and to have welcome thousands of fans into the national stadium.
“We must also thank the stadium team who have worked tirelessly to adapt the venue to suit varying needs. We look forward to another exciting summer of music next year.”
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Spice Girls add five extra dates after “off-the-chart” demand
Saturday’s Spice Girls stadium tour onsale was a record-breaker for Ticketmaster UK, with enough fans trying to get tickets that the band “could have played nearly every night for a year”, according to MD Andrew Parsons.
The Spice World 2019 UK tour, promoted by SJM Concerts, Live Nation and Solo, will see the ’90s icons play stadia across Britain next summer. Five extra dates were added to the initial six due to incredible demand for tickets, which went on sale on Saturday morning (10 November).
“Demand for Spice Girls was off the chart,” comments Parsons. “They have smashed through Ticketmaster UK’s records, becoming the busiest-ever sale. There were millions of people on our site searching for tickets, with a queue at one point of well over 700,000. Hundreds of thousands of tickets were sold to happy fans across the country within minutes.
“Congratulations to the girls. From what we saw, they could have played nearly every night for a year.”
In addition to the extra shows, the band has announced a new line of branded T-shirts to raise funds for Comic Relief’s Power Up campaign, which supports charities that promote equality for women and girls.
“They could have played nearly every night for a year”
The T-shirts, emblazoned with the slogan ‘#IWannabeASpiceGirl’, are available to purchase until 1 December from Represent.com.
Liz Warner, chief executive of Comic Relief, says: “Girl Power is a shared passion. Right now, this movement for equality is uniting the world in the most spectacular way, and this very generous gift is going to help us support even more organisations fighting for the rights of women and girls here in the UK.
“We are proud to be the ones to take this forward with the Spice Girls and look forward to seeing the difference we can make together.”
Full tour dates, with the new shows highlighted in bold, are below:
Wednesday 29th May – Manchester – Etihad Stadium
Friday 31st May – Manchester – Etihad Stadium
Saturday 1st June – Manchester – Etihad Stadium
Monday 3rd June – Coventry – Ricoh Arena
Tuesday 4th June – Coventry – Ricoh Arena
Thursday 6th June – Sunderland – Stadium Of Light
Saturday 8th June – Edinburgh – BT Murrayfield Stadium
Monday 10th June – Bristol – Ashton Gate Stadium
Thursday 13th June – London – Wembley Stadium
Friday 14th June – London – Wembley Stadium
Saturday 15th June – London – Wembley Stadium
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