CELEBRITY

Adele’s Munich concert series is taking place in a custom—and temporary—stadium

admin1 month ago07 mins

Pop superstar Adele can have it all—at least when it comes to a bespoke stadium assembled in Munich for an upcoming series of concerts.

Set to accommodate 80,000 fans, the arena boasts a $43 million, 721-by-98-foot LED screen as well as “Adeleworld,” which includes a re-created English pub. The temporary megastadium underscores the changing nature of high-stakes touring, and the expanding use of temporary venues for sports and cultural events. For big-name stars promoting ever-more elaborate and complicated stage shows—think Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, or Kanye West—there’s definitely an advantage to staging a series of shows at a fixed venue.

But does a temporary stadium make sense, given sustainability concerns in the music industry? Concert experts estimate that 50% to 80% of the carbon emissions from touring come from fan travel, which would be significant for residency-type shows, and a single-use stage stadium sounds like a misuse of resources. Still, representatives of Live Nation Germany claim a vast majority of the stage and seating will be reused, and that public transit for concertgoers will be included in their ticket, mitigating some travel emissions.

Marek Lieberberg, head of Live Nation Germany, has compared the stage to the Coliseum, and says that it was deliberately designed with Adele in mind. It’s part of an experiment for the concert promoter, and perhaps the industry; can these kinds of setups prove popular enough with audiences and artists to be repeated?

“We knew Adele wasn’t interested in going on tour, so we thought, What else might excite her?” said venue designer Florian Wieder, who has also worked on stage shows for Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and U2. “We gave her a venue that reflects her as a talent in the best possible way.”

Temporary venues for big events aren’t anything new, said Jeff Keas, a senior principal at Populous, a firm that designs stadiums across the globe, like the temporary 34,000-seat cricket stadium used in Long Island for the recent Cricket World Cup. But he does think people are becoming more aware of the option, making it more prevalent.

The $130 million temporary stadium for Adele’s Munich shows, set on fairgrounds that host large-scale events like the world construction equipment fair, was built in 30 days. Some 700 workers completed the task, starting with a layer of asphalt and gravel, which will later be ground up and reused. The roughly 43,000-square-foot stage and seating will be constructed of standard scaffolding. That will allow up to 95% of the stage to be disassembled after the event and restaged for other events, according to Sebastian Pichel, Live Nation Germany’s production manager. The massive LED screen, stretched out in front of Adele’s fans, will provide more concertgoers intimate views of the singer, an important selling point for the temporary stadium concept.

Unlike so many other traveling tours, which need to be designed to accommodate different-size venues, Adele’s shows will take place in a space designed specifically for her performance. It would be incredibly challenging to take such an oversize LED screen on the road; for comparison, Kanye’s Yeezus tour featured a 60-foot LED, Beyoncé toured behind a 60-by-60-foot cube, and Taylor Swift’s show featured 110-foot-tall screens. Anything is technically portable, but the Adele screen would present more logistical issues.

“I’m from the north of Germany, so I don’t show emotions, but I’m really impressed by this stadium to be honest,” Pichel said. “It’s very beautiful.”

The shows, which will be attended by roughly 750,000 people over 10 nights in August, will bring an estimated 500 million euros ($542 million) in ancillary revenue to the city of Munich. An estimated 80% of concertgoers will arrive at the event by rail; transit passes are included in the tickets, to encourage rail travel, since the venue doesn’t have enough parking.

Live Nation Germany’s Lieberberg says, “I think we’re creating a model here and saying to the world-class artists, we can create a space for you where you don’t have to travel.”

[Rendering: courtesy Florian Wieder]