Toronto's Rogers Stadium set to welcome Coldplay, with crowd control ‘adjustments'
TORONTO — Rogers Stadium is set to welcome tens of thousands of Coldplay fans tonight for the first of four shows by the British rock band, as organizers say they are 'making adjustments' to improve crowd control at Toronto's newest outdoor music venue.
After the venue's inaugural concert last Sunday, some attendees said it took up to two hours to exit the stadium as the site and transit services seemed ill-equipped to handle the large crowds.
Concertgoers also complained about limited access to water at the stadium, with some describing hour-long lineups at bottle filling stations that dispensed warm water in some cases.
Live Nation Canada, which operates the stadium near Downsview Park, says it will be adding more signage, lighting, staff and water stations to improve the fan experience.
It also says the stadium's exit routes will be reconfigured to disperse crowds to all three nearby subway stations in order to mitigate crowding at the Downsview Park station, which also serves GO train passengers.
The Toronto Transit Commission has said it will be adding more staff to its Downsview Park and Wilson stations on concert nights, while Metrolinx only said it would 'closely monitor' GO train ridership levels for events at the stadium.
Meanwhile, Ticketmaster has sent an email to Coldplay ticket holders advising them that cellular reception at Rogers Stadium gates 'will be limited as this is a large-capacity venue.'
James Pasternak, a city councillor whose ward includes the Downsview Park area, said 'respectful but blunt' conversations about what needs to be improved at Rogers Stadium took place on Wednesday during a meeting with Live Nation and Northcrest Developments, which owns the property.
'With concerts scheduled all summer and shortcomings apparent from the first performance, we put pressure on all responsible parties to sort out concerns,' Pasternak said in a social media post.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 7, 2025.
Natasha Baldin, The Canadian Press
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Post
an hour ago
- National Post
Raymond J. de Souza: Memories of Live Aid and a different era
Article content Yet it was as a cultural phenomenon that Live Aid seems from an entirely different era. Would it be possible today to assemble a cast of musicians sufficiently well known across the generations to attract the viewers that Live Aid did in 1985? The stadium show itself no longer has the cultural power it did in the 1980s, when it was a staple of summertime. Article content Taylor Swift's recent tour, concluded in Canada, attracted such attention partly because it was so unusual — a pop star selling out massive stadium after massive stadium. It happens, but not like the 1980s, when Springsteen and Jackson and others packed football stadiums night after night, summer after summer — and it didn't require debt financing for the fans to attend. Article content Perhaps Swift marks a return to popular live music. A new outdoor concert facility — capacity 50,000 — opened on the old Toronto Downsview airport site last month. Coldplay did four shows there, part of their multi-year Music of the Spheres tour that has now sold more tickets than any other tour in history. Article content Article content But Swift and Coldplay are more likely exceptional. Which is a shame, because the joyous exuberance of the stadium tour is not replicable in the privatized music listening environment of the digital world. Article content Article content In 1985 the Sony Walkman was still relatively new, launched only in 1979, and had not yet reached its peak. Still running on audio cassettes, the Walkman was a cultural earthquake, converting music from an ambient communal experience to a singular, even private, one. Article content It was still possible in the early 1990s to walk around a university campus and to hear the current anthems wafting out of open windows; now everyone is wearing earbuds and no one hears each other's music. Something was lost when parents and children — and brothers and sisters — fought over what was on the radio or the home stereo. The first act to play the new Downsview site was Stray Kids. It's a K-pop group I have never heard of. To be fair, I don't know any K-pop groups. To be honest, I had to look up what K-pop is. Article content Article content The stadium and arena tour is not entirely dead. Springsteen is still performing and Elton John's farewell tour went on so long he may still revive it. Article content In 2019, Princeton economist Alan Krueger, chairman of the council of economic advisers under Barack Obama, wrote a fun book called Rockonomics on the music industry. Pre-digital, artists could earn well from sales of recorded music. Streaming killed that off, similar to declining sales in printed media. The big money now is in live concerts. According to Krueger's research, even McCartney, who dominated the world of records with his long list of No. 1 songs, now earns 80 per cent of his income from live concerts. Article content
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
‘A magical place' : New little free library brings poetry to the Fredericton Botanic Garden
Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers (left) and Fawn Parker, the city's newest poet laureate, are pictured beside the Little Free Poetry Library in the Fredericton Botanic Gardens. (Courtesy: Fawn Parker) There's a poetic new addition to the Fredericton Botanic Garden. It's now home to a Little Free Poetry Library. 'It gives the message that poetry is for anybody and everybody,' says Fawn Parker, the city's fourth Poet Laureate, who is behind the initiative. 'You don't have to be really well-read or experienced. It's just there for you.' While 'little free libraries' are a common sight around the region, this one in the park caters specifically to poetry. It was unveiled on Tuesday and contains donated books that include works by New Brunswick poets Lynn Davies and Ian Letourneau. Little Free Poetry Library The new Little Free Poetry Library at the Fredericton Botanic Gardens is pictured. (Courtesy: City of Fredericton) 'You can take something. You can leave something. You can just read something and put it right back. I really want it to feel like it belongs to the whole city,' says Parker. Parker started her two-year position as Fredericton's Poet Laureate in September 2024. The 31-year-old, who is working on her PhD in writing at UNB, came into the role with the goal of making poetry more obtainable. 'I just find poetry is so often inaccessible or feels inaccessible,' says Parker. 'Even to me as someone who was a writer and studies writing in the institution, it just feels like it's a language that we're not really taught to speak. And because there's that kind of difficulty of getting into it, I think a lot of people don't try or pre-emptively think it's not for them. And I just think that's so untrue. I think poetry can be anything, whether it's simple or it's rhyming or it's really complicated.' The Little Free Poetry Library was built by woodworker Vic Dunphy. The design, with its red metal roof and distinct 'backwards' orientation, pays homage to late Fredericton-native and internationally acclaimed poet Bliss Carman's home that's still standing in the city's downtown. library under construction The Little Free Poetry Library is pictured, under construction in Vic Dunphy's woodworking shop, before it was installed in Fredericton's Botanic Garden. (Courtesy: Fawn Parker) 'Finally seeing it installed and available was fantastic because it actually has the true likeness of Bliss Carman's home, which makes it a bit unique,' says Julie Wright, a board member for the Botanic Garden. 'It's just a wonderful addition.' The Garden is located on a 21-hectare property at the west end of Odell Park and is open to the public, free of charge, year-round. 'It's also located in our NB Literature Garden,' says Wright. 'So, when you walk through that particular garden, there is a little a poem or something specific that has been done by a New Brunswick author for each of the different plants.' Poet sign One of the signs honouring New Brunswick authors in the Fredericton Botanic Gardens is pictured. (Courtesy: Julie Wright) The community garden, which is marking its 35th anniversary, had a local company create custom bookmarks for the celebration. 'We thought that'd be something nice to be able to put in it as well,' says Wright, who hopes people will take the opportunity to sit down with a poem on one of the Garden's memorial benches. 'The garden's kind of a magical place, and poetry is a little magical as well. They're just a good fit for one another to be able to read a beautiful little poem while you're looking at some beautiful plants and listening to the birds sing.' Bookmark A custom bookmark created to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Fredericton Public Gardens is pictured (Courtesy: Julie Wright) Parker says she hopes to continue making poetry more accessible by adding free books to spaces like waiting rooms, long term care homes, and hospitals. 'Spaces that maybe feel a little isolated or lonely, and where it wouldn't be easy to go to the library or go to a bookstore,' says Parker. 'Just have books kind of right there for people to grab.' For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
CBC
3 hours ago
- CBC
The sidewalk fairy turning Montreal street cracks into art
News Duration 4:45 Laurence Petit, better known as the "Sidewalk Fairy," is bringing street art to the ground by paving over Montreal's sidewalk cracks with her mosaic art.
