Adele is to deploy a “a one off, bespoke pop-up stadium” for a series of new concerts, her first in mainland Europe since 2016.
The chart-topping, multiple Grammy-winning singer will play four concerts in Munich in August. She wrote on Instagram that she had not been considering new live dates after her 2022 concert in London’s Hyde Park and her ongoing residency in Las Vegas which is due to end in June. She added:
However, I was too curious to not follow up and indulge in this idea – a one-off, bespoke pop-up stadium designed around whatever show I want to put on? Ohh!? Pretty much slap bang in the middle of Europe? In Munich? That’s a bit random, but still fabulous! Right after the Euros? Come on England! With the Olympics next door? Go on Simone [Biles]! And some of my favourite artists playing shows too? Why … YES!! I haven’t played in Europe since 2016! I couldn’t think of a more wonderful way to spend my summer and end this beautiful phase of my life and career with shows closer to home.
Renderings of the stadium show a clamshell-shaped design picked out with bright bordering, plus a semi-circular walkway to a B-stage. It helps replicate – at a grander scale – the type of theatre stage setup that Adele has been using in Las Vegas. She has been performing her Weekends With Adele concert residency since November 2022 at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
Adele is notably hands-on with the production design for her concerts. The Vegas residency was originally set to begin the previous January, but she postponed it at the last minute, later citing issues with the set design, calling it “very disconnected from me and my band, and it lacked intimacy”.
Other experiments with pop-up venues include one by Abba, hosting their immersive avatar-led Abba Voyage concerts in a bespoke arena in east London. The steel and timber building can be dismantled and rebuilt, though plans for a new home after the successful and ongoing London run have not been announced.
A pop-up stadium was built for the Qatar World Cup in 2022 – Stadium 974 used 974 shipping containers as a key element of its design, and has since been disassembled. A 34,000-capacity pop-up stadium is currently being planned in New York, 25 miles east of Manhattan, to host matches for cricket’s T20 World Cup as the International Cricket Council looks to expand the sport’s popularity in the US.
Fans must register for tickets to Adele’s Munich concerts by 5 February, ahead of tickets going on sale on 7 and 9 February.
