The Stadium Era: Live music’s new power stage
Stadium shows have never been so popular, with record residencies and unprecedented global demand. So how much bigger will it get? Eamonn Forde reports.
Feature By IQ | 12 August 2025
“Hello, Wembley!” will be roared by more singers to more audience members than ever before this summer as Wembley Stadium (capacity 90,000) welcomes over 2m people to concerts by Coldplay (ten nights), Oasis (seven nights), Dua Lipa (two nights), Lana Del Rey, Guns N’ Roses, and Linkin Park.
Most stadiums around the world are seeing a phenomenal boom in the number of shows they can put on due to the complex and serendipitous alignment of different factors: more artists touring, more new headliners coming through, improved audience experiences, social media-powered bragging rights exacerbating FOMO, and city-based mega-shows being seen by many as preferable to, and more affordable than, weekend festivals.
“[There is] potentially a post-Covid thirst for big experiences, [where] international acts can play fewer shows…
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