London Stadium wants to challenge Wembley Stadium as key mega music venue for the capital
Less football for better footfall
London Stadium plans to refocus its efforts, to bring us more concerts and fewer sports events in the future.
The stadium, which is the home ground of West Ham United, currently loses £19 million a year according to chair Lyn Garner.
London Stadium’s current deal allows it to host just 10 non-sport-related events a year, and 87 sporting ones. But it is seeking to change things up to allow for 24 concerts a year and 70 sports events.
It had a particulaly barren year for concerts in 2025, though, with just two concert dates in the calendar: June 6th with Olivia Dean, CMAT and Sam Fender. And June 28th with an Iron Maiden headliner show.
This year so far we’ve had a couple of Take That shows, a couple of Metallica ones. But London Stadium is still a way off its aim to become one of the major large-scale music destinations in the capital.
London Stadium has capacity for up to 80,000 attendees for concerts, meaning it’s not that far off the 90,000 Wembley Stadium. This year that rival stadium has held massive Bruno Mars, My Chemical Romance and Harry Styles concert series, as well as its share of Oasis gigs in 2025.
The pressure on London Stadium has only been increased by West Ham’s relegation from the Premier League to the Championship, which will see the venue lose more than half its £4.6 million annual rent from the club, according to the BBC. However, West Ham will continue to play at the stadium with the same capacity on tap.
As the Standard noted in a recent editorial, London is going through a something of a large-scale music event boom — one estimated to bring in £2.7 billion to the city this year according to the Major of London’s office.
Despite this, though, there are currently no future music events listed for London Stadium at present. The last was Metallica on 5th July. We’ll be on the lookout for announcements of upcoming shows.
Skip the search — follow Shortlist on Google News to get our best lists, news, features and reviews at the top of your feeds!
