Leeds’ first direct arena celebrates 10 years

IQ speaks to the visionaries who helped make the first decade of Leeds' first direct arena such a success

first direct arena, Leeds © Wikimedia Commons/The Jaco

Twenty-four years. TWENTY-FOUR! That’s how long the good people of Leeds lived without a music arena befitting the city’s status as the UK’s fifth largest and a hotspot of innovation, culture, and creativity.

Instead, Leeds’ 750,000-odd residents, and artists, had to traipse down the M1 to Sheffield or cross the Pennines to Manchester to get their arena-sized music fix.

“It’s weird to think back to the early Kaiser Chiefs days in Leeds, and how quickly, as a…

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