The boss of east Manchester’s new £365 million arena says it will become one of the busiest and most important music venues in the world on the day it opens.
Co-op Live, currently under construction next to the Etihad Stadium in east Manchester, is on track to be completed and host its first events in December next year.
In an exclusive interview with the Manchester Evening News, Tim Leiweke, CEO of Oak View Group, the American firm behind the project, said they had already “locked down” some artists for the first flurry of gigs.
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And he revealed how the venue on the banks of the Ashton Canal, which he says was inspired by a Bruce Springsteen remark and which Harry Styles helped create, will have 32 bars, restaurants and clubs, but will be a “big sweaty hall” inside.
Speaking from the Co-op Live’s swanky offices in the Northern Quarter, Tim, 65 said: “You’ll be hearing artists and events announced soon. We have some things already locked down. We have some big things locked down.”
On the possibility of heartthrob Harry, who is a “passionate” investor in the project, opening the venue himself, Tim said: “It’s his choice, as to what he wants to do, but my guess is in somewhere in the first six months of the building you are going to see a large Harry presence and I think he’s going to want to do something spectacular as this is hometown.
“One thing I absolutely guarantee you is it will be one of the three or four busiest arenas in the world on day one. Right off the bat.
“And I’m talking the Garden, Forum, O2, Co-op Live. Those four buildings will be the four most important music buildings in the world.
"Manchester deserves one of the great, great music venues. The arena we’re building here, it’s going to be the greatest music arena ever built.”
He said Covid had not delayed the project as OVG and Manchester City’s owners the City Football Group, who are co-investors, had benefited from putting in their money up front, securing the financing for the project before the pandemic economic shocks and also from ‘buying out’ virtually all the materials needed for the project at the beginning.
“The decision we entered into with the city of Manchester to try and put as much of this £365 million economic impact into the region and try to drive the economy here, it turns out that has saved us, as what we don’t have, which many other projects have, is shipping issues,” he said. "If we hadn't have done that, we wouldn't be having this conversation, we'd be delayed by at least a year or two.
“If we went out and started this project today, and priced it up today, it would be a £500 million arena. So I got some sleep at night with Co-op Live.”
The 23,500-capacity venue, set to become the biggest indoor arena in the UK when it opens, will host around 120 events a year. Tim, an entertainment and sports executive with decades of experience in the industry, said on previous arena projects he had always been “compromised by trying to please everyone” but that with Co-op Live had “made it about music and started there."
And he revealed how none other than 'The Boss' - rock legend Bruce Springsteen - had a role in shaping its ethos.
Tim said he was left “devastated” that whilst opening the Staples Centre in LA, Bruce said 'all you corporate people in the boxes come out here we’re having a party.'
"I went to see him afterwards and asked him what he thought. He said ‘I like a hot sweaty hall'. I never forgot that. And I promised myself then I had to be smarter.
“This arena, Co-op Live, will do 100 nights of music a year. Yes, we’ll do a hockey or basketball game or two. We’ll hopefully do boxing. We’ll definitely do UFC. But it’ll do 100 nights of music. Manchester is one of the greatest music cities in the world. What are we doing trying to please everyone? Let's just please music.
“When we sat down with our architects for the first time we said ‘build us a hot sweaty hall.’ I want this to be a club, but for 23,500 people.
“So what people are going to see when they come in here is we built a music club. So for the artist, their fans, the experience and the acoustics will be perfect.”
Harry Styles, who last week took a tour of the site with his mum, had helped design some of the finishes on the venue bowl, which has a ‘black box’ design devoid of big advertising hoardings to give it a more ‘intimate’ feel, Tim said.
But he said the music star had also helped design the back-of-house area for the artists, along with Tim’s partner at OVG, music manager Irving Azoff, and the promoter Live Nation.
“The largest manager in the business, the largest artist in the business right now, the largest promoter in the business, and they all figured out how to make it a hot, sweaty hall. In front of the stage and back of the stage.
“The amount of expertise, knowledge and passion we have on this arena and this design, it’s the best design I have ever seen and the proudest I have ever been.”
The arena wouldn’t be hosting events on the day or nights of City games, he added, but said the plan was for the arena and the neighbouring stadium to ‘compliment each other.’
For example, the new arena’s atrium, which can hold up to 4,000 people on its own, could be used for events before and after games as well as being able to be "turned into a nightclub" for events after gigs at the arena itself Tim said.
Co-op Live would become “not just a regional draw but an international draw” he added saying it would “help drive tourism, restaurants, hotels, nightlife” in the city centre.
And he said he hopes the venue will be a “catalyst” for more hospitality and entrainment venues opening around it in east Manchester.
“I don’t want to be a vacuum and suck the air out of the marketplace,” he says. “We, and City Football Group, want Co-op Live to be a catalyst for economic rejuvenation in that part of Manchester.
“If you think of points of destination in the world, where else do you have something like the Etihad Stadium, and an arena which is going one of the two or three best music arenas in the world, together? Where else do you see the rest of that development and ultimately have land to fill it in?
“But we do connect to the downtown area. We’re a mile from Piccadilly station and all the urban living and residential that is in between and which is moving towards the campus. We don’t want to suck the air of the downtown, we want to compliment it.”
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