US rock band The Killers and British music legend Elton John are the two big names to appear at South Bristol’s Ashton Gate Stadium this summer - with the Rocket Man even coming back to do two gigs.
It has been a long three years since some of the biggest music names on the planet arrived in BS3 as 2019 saw the launch of a series of music events on the hallowed pitch of Ashton Gate, after the football and rugby had finished.
Now, with the covid pandemic hopefully over, the big music events are returning for the summer, and the first is the arrival of Las Vegas rockers The Killers.
The Killers at Ashton Gate: Full list of banned items including umbrellas, food and perfume
It may well be your first time visiting Ashton Gate, or your first time at a gig of this size in Bristol, so we’ve put together a handy guide which hopefully will have everything you need to know about attending the concert.
And we’ll also have information for local residents in BS3 who could be impacted by the concerts. Let’s start with The Killers, who were first booked to appear at Ashton Gate back in 2020, but the covid pandemic scuppered that idea not once, but twice.
If you bought tickets for The Killers back before the covid pandemic in late 2019 and early 2020, and have been clinging on to them ever since - well done, you made it. While you were waiting, Ashton Gate was transformed into a mass vaccination centre - indeed it was where Prime Minister Boris Johnson launched the mass vaccination programme back in the first week of 2021 - and the concourses you will queue for food and drink inside the stadium once saw hundreds of thousands of covid jabs given out by NHS and military medics for the first eight months of last year. Since then, in the past ten months, things have got back to relative normality - crowds have come back to watch Bristol City struggle in the Championship, and Bristol Bears enjoy another rollercoaster season of rugby. Now that's all over for another summer, the music can commence!
What are the timings for the concert?
The Killers new rescheduled date is Thursday, May 26, 2022. The area around the outside stadium itself will become a ‘fan village’ - and that will open at 3.30pm, with the stadium itself opening at 5.30pm.
The support act to The Killers will fire up their amps at 7.30pm, and the concert itself will end at 10.25pm. If there’s any fireworks for the end of the concert, local residents might be interested to know, they’ll be around then.
Are there still tickets available?
With a week to go before the event, there’s precious few tickets left for The Killers. It sold out two years ago, and hospitality packages are sold out now, according to the Ashton Gate Stadium website. Ticketmaster had tickets to stand on the pitch for £71.50, and seat tickets, mainly in the Dolman Stand off to the side, which cost £93.50 (plus all the fees).
What are the age limits?
The base line is no children under five years old is allowed to go. Anyone under the age of 16 has to be accompanied by someone over 18, and any child aged between five and 14 has to have a seat ticket - no under 14s are allowed on the standing area on the pitch.
Who is the support act?
The Killers have a number of different support acts for their world tour, and Welsh rockers Manic Street Preachers - arguably a more well-known band in Bristol than The Killers - are certain to have a massive support from here and over the bridges. The Manics will start at 7.30pm.
What should you wear?
If you’ve got a standing ticket, or a seat in the first couple of rows, it will mean you’re going to be on or very near the pitch and therefore open to the elements. It’s advisable to take some kind of rainproof coat. The forecast is for changeable weather next week, so you never know.
Ashton Gate Stadium was pretty much entirely rebuilt in the mid 2010s - and now all but the first few rows of seats are undercover in all three of the stands which are open for the concerts, so if you’ve got a seat ticket, you’ll stay dry.
In 2019, the first Ashton Gate Concerts series saw lovely warm and dry weather for Rod Stewart, Muse and Take That, but it absolutely chucked it down all day and into the evening for the final gig, The Spice Girls.
An umbrella is among the list of items you can’t take into the stadium - the rest of that list is here - so don’t get caught out.
Food and drink
As a nearly new stadium, there’ll be loads of bars and food outlets inside the stadium itself, as well as more variety outside in the Fan Village - which is basically an area around the outside of the South Stand and Lansdown Stand that is created to be inside the outer ticket cordon. The usual turnstiles to get into the stadium will be open and people can go freely from inside to outside the stadium.
Particular hits in 2019 were special wine stands they set up, and the range of hot takeaway food on offer is pretty good - as we explored back in 2019 here.
One of the things you can’t take into the fan village and stadium - controversially for some - is your own food and drink, unless it’s for ‘medicinal purposes’. You can bring in one single 500ml bottle of water, unopened, though.
Security
Like all big events and venues, there will be pretty strict security. Ashton Gate Stadium are advising people not to bring bags with them, unless they have to. And the smaller the bag, the better. Bags and people will be searched and, as people who went to Wembley recently, found out - these sorts of things take time.
Anyone with a bag that’s bigger than an A4 sheet of paper won’t be allowed to take it in.
What about the loos?
One of the things stadium boss Mark Kelly made sure of when they were designing the new stadium at Ashton Gate almost ten years ago now was that there would be almost as many female toilets than men’s - something that’s pretty unusual at sporting venues.
That was put to the test with the 2019 concert series, particularly at The Spice Girls, when the gender split of concert-goers was about 70-30 female to male. Some of the men’s toilets were converted to female for the occasion, and a long line of upmarket portable toilets will line Marina Dolman Way, outside the Lansdown Stand and inside the Fan Village too.
How much cash will I need?
Interestingly, just before the pandemic hit, Ashton Gate converted to a card-only system with its food and drink outlets, so you may well not need any cash for the evening - there aren’t any cash machines near the stadium anyway.
Around Ashton Gate
If you want to make a day or an evening of it, Ashton Gate is at the end of one of Bristol’s most famous streets - North Street - full of independents bars and restaurants that will be well worth visiting. For instance, it’s home to the original and first-ever Lounge bar, as well as loads of other pubs and eateries. It’s also home to perhaps the world’s most famous street art festivals, Upfest - which is currently in the process of transforming the walls of the area once again with some amazing street art.
In practical terms, there’s a big public park, Greville Smyth Park, right opposite one side of the stadium. On the other side, there’s a retail park with a KFC, and Iceland and a B&M bargains right next door, and just down the road is a big Sainsbury’s.
Getting to Ashton Gate
Unless you live within walking distance of Ashton Gate, this is going to be something you will have to think about - it’s going to be difficult for you to just get in the car, drive to Ashton Gate and then start looking for somewhere to park.
There are designated buses running from park and ride sites around Bristol, there’s also coaches running to the gig from quite a large number of towns and cities around Bristol, and there’s regular train and bus services that are being increased to carry people to the concert and back again.
Roads around the stadium are going to be closed and there’s also a Residents’ Parking Zone that is being introduced for the concerts and will be rigorously enforced with tow trucks and operators just itching to lift cars onto the flatbeds.
For the full details of all your options - we’ve put together a special information article for both concert-goers and local residents, here.
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