More than one million people attended live music events across London last week
Huge shows from The Weeknd, Bruce Springsteen, Blur, Lana Del Rey and more helped contribute to the huge total.
By Nick Reilly
More than a million people attended live music events across London last week, after some of the world’s biggest stars descended on the capital.
According to the Music Venue Trust, a mixture of sold-out stadium shows and small gigs brought in more than £320m to the capital in ticket sales and spending that occurred due to the events.
Blur‘s two shows at Wembley Stadium, The Weeknd at London Stadium and performances by the likes of Billy Joel and Lana Del Rey at Hyde Park’s British Summer Time Festival were among the main money-spinners, as the BBC reports.
Among the other events to take place in the capital were Bruce Springsteen’s Hyde Park dates and the Somerset House Summer Series – which took in shows from the likes of Gabriels and Interpol.
Speaking to the BBC, Mayor Sadiq Khan said London was the “undisputed world leader in live music”.
He added: “London has been abuzz with excitement over the last week, and given everything that happened during the pandemic, it’s genuinely fantastic that over million people were able to see brilliant live music last week.”
Blur’s Wembley Stadium shows were met with critical acclaim, after 26-song setlist saw them rattle through classics including ‘Girls & Boys’, ‘Song 2’, ‘Tender’, ‘Country House’, ‘Coffee & TV’, ‘There’s No Other Way’ and epic closer ‘The Universal’.
They’ll now return to the capital at the end of the month for a special show that will see them play ‘The Ballad of Darren’ in full. Revisit Rolling Stone’s inside look the at the “most unexpected” return of Blur here.