By far the greatest music venue the world has ever seen

Henry Irving

South London's O2 arena has broken records to become the world's most popular music arena for the second year in a row.

Official figures released by industry publication Pollstar show the Greenwich venue sold nearly two million tickets last year.

Pollstar says the 1,806, 447 total is the highest figure since it started monitoring annual ticket sales in 2000. The figure for the 20,000-seat arena inside the former Millennium Dome is attributable to sell-out shows by Kylie Minogue, the Eagles, Kanye West, Kings of Leon, Stevie Wonder, the Spice Girls and Sir Elton John.

The world's next most-visited arena last year was New York's Madison Square Gardens where there were more than 500,000 ticket sales than the O2.

But it was bad news for Wembley Arena which has struggled to compete since its east London rival opened for business in 2007. The 12,500-capacity venue - once London's most popular - was listed 38th in the world.

Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of Pollstar said: "This is certainly the highest year-end tickets sales we have had since our records began in 2000. The O2 has made a massive impact on the global concert business."

Arena chiefs hope that another flurry of big name acts this year including Britney Spears, Tina Turner, The Killers, Beyoncé, Pink, AC/DC, and Bob Dylan will help the venue break the two million mark.

Venue Ticket sales

1. O2 arena, London - 1,806, 447

2. Madison Square Gardens, New York - 1,161,035

3. Manchester Evening News Arena, Manchester - 1,157,892

4. Sportpaleis Antwerpen Merksem, Belgium - 889,137

5. Air Canada Centre, Toronto - 723,469

Source: Pollstar

C_f_W

Let's be honest, Wembley has had it coming for years. In all the years I've been going there - over 20 years - it's been salgged off for everything you could imagine. Personally I'm proud to have a venue like the O2 on my doorstep.

DA9

I went last summer to see Michael Buble, saw him in Brighton the year before, and it was the same set and support, Brighton was better for sound etc, found the o2 too large and impersonal.
Granted, it holds a lot, but takes away the atmosphere for me.

C_f_W

That's surely more about getting the right venue for the act. I saw Andrea Bocelli there and brilliant as he was it was completely the wrong venue for him, they even shut the upper tier off. Prince,on the other hand,was simply perfect for the place.

The O2's strength is that it's about more than the main arena. Indigo2 has been a massive success for them, the cinema is superb VFM and they have loads of eateries and 'nightspots'. They use their spare capacity quite well too - the ski slope and the Africa Africa show back that up.

Henry Irving

my only bugbear is the parking fees. Would go more often if not for that.

suzisausage

RIP Astoria. btw

Goonerhater

The Valley

DA9

[cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]my only bugbear is the parking fees. Would go more often if not for that.

I park right at the end of Tunnel Avenue, then walk across the footbridge opposite Nando's and walk across, 10-15 minute walk.

Salad

[cite]Posted By: suzisausage[/cite]RIP Astoria. btw

echo

I find big venues l soulless and irksome, so even though I could walk to the O2 I never did or remotely wanted to. Like DA9 suggests, bigger is not better.

DA9

And it injures our players!

C_f_W

[cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]my only bugbear is the parking fees. Would go more often if not for that.

One of the good things about the cinema is that you can get your parking fee back. You can also park in the tube car park.

RIP Astoria too btw. Sad they had to cancel tonight's farewell special. Due to lack of interest from the artists apparently

nigel

O2 can be large and impersonal, as DA9 says. But it depends on the skill of the act.

Leonard Cohen, for example, was quite extraordinary there. I much prefer smaller, more intimate places but somehow LC managed to shrink the venue so that it almost felt like you were in his sitting room...Enjoyed Zep there and felt even at £135 that it was value for money, but that was slightly different. Be interesting to see how Dylan fares there in April...