Manchester's £365 million Co-op Live Arena forced to postone opening due to "last minute work"

Manchester’s new £365 million project, the Co-op Live Arena, has cancelled its opening events due to "last-minute work" required to finish the venue.

A spokesperson for the 23,500-capacity Eastlands venue, which will be the largest indoor arena in the UK upon opening, cited “power supply issues” for the delays — other issues, according to The Guardian, were said to include long food queues, unfinished rows of seating, and crowd control problems.

Thousands of ticketholders were informed of cancellations just an hour before doors were due to open for the first time, with 11,000 people - including almost 2,000 staff who worked on the venue - set to attend a test event headlined by Rick Astley on Saturday, April 20.

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Co-op Live cut capacity just hours before the event, leaving thousands of angry ticketholders without a spot at the opening event. "The free concert tonight for all the staff that built the arena has been cancelled,” one staff member told the Manchester Evening News.

“In other words, the so-called owners couldn’t care less about the people that built it. As we all started to arrive we got emails telling us it’s cancelled."

Ticketholders for the test event included staff, paying fans, press, and VIPs, according to the Manchester Evening News, some of whom paid just £5 for tickets ahead of its official opening to the public.

Two subsequent opening events were then cancelled completely, the first due to take place tonight (April 23) and the second tomorrow (April 24) each with performances from Bolton comedian Peter Kay.

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A spokesperson for Co-op Live told The Guardian: “We’re busy putting the finishing touches on Co-op Live, and we are looking forward to Co-op Live becoming the pre-eminent arena in the UK upon opening.”

“As a part of the opening process, we are in the midst of an extensive protocol of testing critical procedures,” they said after cancelling the test event over the weekend.

“To enable us to test the spaces effectively, we have made the difficult decision to reduce the overall capacity for today’s test event. We apologise to affected guests and look forward to welcoming them to the Black Keys.”

Earlier this year, the venue became embroiled in a licencing row with Manchester’s AO Arena after Co-op Live claimed it was being blocked from a 24-hour alcohol licence for "competition reasons".

[Via Manchester Evening News]

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Assistant Editor, follow her on Twitter