Does London need more music venues? Given the appalling rate of closures in recent decades (usually down to rising rents rather than lack of custom) I’d say absolutely yes.
Is Stratford, with its excellent transport links, multiple existing stadiums, and proud history of successful hosting a good location for a new venue? Again, I’d say yes.
Existing businesses and all those new ones that have sprung up in the Olympic Park since 2012 would no doubt appreciate the extra custom, while residents also benefit from living in a buzzy area.
So can we dismiss the residents of Stratford who campaigned against the MSG Sphere as Nimbys and hope central government overrides the Mayor’s decision to block the project?
After all, people have waxed lyrical about U2's gig in a sister Sphere in Las Vegas.
I have less than no sympathy for people who move to buzzing areas and then attempt (too often successfully) to close all the nightlife down. Those people should be banished.
I’m also not sure you should move anywhere in London, but particularly not to a still evolving neighbourhood in process like Stratford, expecting nothing to change.
But there’s an undeniable difference between erecting an enormous illuminated golf ball in a notoriously artificial city in the desert and doing the same in ancient London.
In addition, after a truly blockbuster year, featuring among many others Beyonce at White Hart Lane, Blur at Wembley Stadium, and Madonna at the O2, London hardly has a gaping £150-a-ticket stadium show sized hole in its cultural scene.
You can bust the corporate entertainment budget seeing a legacy act any day of the week, it’s much harder for the next Blur or Madonna to find a grassroots space to make their name. The Sphere was hardly promising to be the new Mudd Club.
More pressingly for the residents of Stratford, no Londoner signs up to live in an area expecting it to turn into Piccadilly Circus 2.0.
Having adverts beamed into your home for the next 25 years in a Blade Runner-style dystopia seems a lot to ask of anyone. Here’s hoping this is the last word on this bonkers project.
