Guy Dunstan, SVP & GM, Co-op Live, has spoken to Music Week about the success of the Manchester venue following its first anniversary.
Co-op Live is a joint-venture between Oak View Group, which is also the venue operator, and City Football Group. With a top capacity of 23,500, it is the UK’s biggest indoor arena with the largest standing floor space.
Despite a troubled launch for the £365 million development amid delays for the opening, the arena has since been doing brisk business and passed a million visitors within 10 months.
Following the opening in May 2024, Dunstan joined in October as the venue continued to stage major stars and welcomed the MTV EMAs. It has since bagged the BRIT Awards as host for 2026 and 2027.
The arrival of Co-op Live has also provided a challenger to the O2 Arena in terms of ticket sales in the arena market.
“It is really positive for the UK,” said Guy Dunstan. “I’ve always said that the stronger our arena network is in the UK, the more it makes us really attractive to the international market.”
Following shows from acts including Paul McCartney, Sam Fender, Janet Jackson, Liam Gallagher, Teddy Swims, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Craig David, Central Cee, The Killers, Nicki Minaj, Take That and Slipknot, Co-op Live was named New Concert Venue Of The Year (International) by Pollstar.
Dunstan said the first year in business shows that “we’re a destination that can put on the biggest and best events”.
“We’ve had so many world-class, iconic artists playing here,” he said.
We push really hard on our marketing and ticket drives, because multiple nights are what makes an arena a success
Guy Dunstan
Global artists have embraced the new opportunity to play in the city – many of them for UK arena exclusives, such as Bruce Springsteen, Burna Boy, Robbie Williams and Chris Brown.
“There are a lot of artists who are playing Co-op Live as the only arena in the network; a lot of these are international artists as well,” said Dunstan.
Springsteen rarely plays indoor shows but Co-op Live was able to secure gigs with The Boss during his UK stadium run.
“Some of them [the UK arena exclusives] have been tagged on to stadium tours, so that we've been able to capture an indoor show,” explained Dunstan.
“We’ve got a very proactive programming team who are talking to all the key people,” he added. “When those conversations are happening, they're also making it very clear that Co-op Live is a venue that they should play, because of the experience of the acoustics and the quality of the facilities we've got. It's been an enticing offer for artists to come and play here, and so they're coming to see what it's all about. We’re getting great feedback, which I think is building the reputation and other artists want to play here on the back of that.”
He also underlined the transport connections and hospitality in Manchester.
“We have the train network, but also the airport as well,” said Dunstan. “It’s also the quality of the hotels we've got in the city. Bruce Springsteen made this his home for nearly two weeks when he was here for his shows, and from what I hear he was made to feel very at home when he was in and around the city.”
The partnership with Co-op on a pre-sale mechanism is also seeing impressive results. In March, the Manchester arena moved 46,000 tickets in a day and beat all other European venues for that week, according to box office figures.
“Through our partnership with Co-op, the pre-sales at Co-op Live are really strong, consistently the strongest in the arena market,” said Dunstan. “That is great for us because when you’re selling quickly and selling really well, that’s driving these second and third nights [for artists at the venue].”
Artists who have played multiple nights this summer include Bruce Springsteen, Robbie Williams, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and Drake.
“We push really hard on our marketing and ticket drives, because multiple nights are what makes an arena a success,” said Dunstan. “So we’ve been really fortunate in the quality of acts we’ve been getting into the building.”
I love nothing more than seeing a local act or a UK act that gets into the arena market
Guy Dunstan
US breakthrough artists are now coming straight into playing more than one arena date. Teddy Swims, Benson Boone and Tate McRae have all booked multiple Co-op Live dates in 2025.
“For the last 20 years, I’ve been hearing about how all these heritage acts are still the staple diet of an arena programme,” said Dunstan. “But we’ve seen some of those new artists coming through as well, playing multiple nights, which is really positive for the future of the arena business.”
The venue has also established a broad base of genres, including a sold-out show for Australian DJ Sonny Fodera in November and a UK exclusive with Afrobeats star Burna Boy in April 2025.
“Country music is a really huge genre for the arena market as well now,” added Dunstan. “So there are plenty of different genres that we're attracting here, and there are one or two that we're seeing primarily in London that we'd like to see come out of London into Manchester.”
Co-op Live is also helping UK acts into arenas, such as Little Simz and Tom Odell.
“I love nothing more than seeing a local act or a UK act that gets into the arena market,” said Dunstan. “We would love to see more. We’ve got different formats in the venues, so we can start at a lower capacity and grow it depending on ticket sales.
“So the more we can have different formats that can help drive artists into the arena market. and help them at the lower end as an introductory level into the arena market – yeah, we have that capability of doing it.”
The full interview is in the current edition of Music Week.
PHOTO: Benson Boone performing at the MTV EMAs at Co-op Live in 2024 (Dominic Lipinski/Getty Images for Paramount)
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