Thousands ‘fuming’ after tickets cancelled for Co-op Live arena show in Manchester

On Saturday, numerous individuals who were planning to attend the inaugural event at the largest indoor arena in the United Kingdom had their tickets invalidated at the eleventh hour.

Rick Astley performed at the newly-built Co-op Live venue, which can hold up to 23,500 people. The venue is set to open soon, but a free test event was held for workers, VIPs, and journalists, with 11,000 people in attendance.

It is believed that around 4,000 tickets were invalidated, with some being cancelled merely an hour before the event, causing considerable anger among the affected individuals.

A person who was planning to attend the live music performance, Byron Edwards, expressed his frustration on social media platform X. He stated that his entry tickets for the test event scheduled for the night were invalidated only 90 minutes before the starting time. He found this to be an unorganized and unsatisfactory situation.

Alison Stafford-Bentley expressed her anger after receiving a cancellation notice less than an hour before the event was scheduled to begin. She was extremely frustrated by the situation.

Additional challenges during the event comprised of extended wait times when queueing up for food, sections of seating being unprepared, and issues with managing the large crowds within the location.

A representative from Co-op Live shared that the final details are in progress and they are excited about Co-op Live becoming the leading arena in the UK once it opens.

As we prepare to open, we are currently running a thorough testing process to ensure our procedures are working effectively. In order to carry out this test as efficiently as possible, we have reluctantly decided to limit the number of guests in attendance. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause and we look forward to seeing all guests at The Black Keys soon.

Located on the Etihad Campus right by the Manchester City soccer stadium, the brand new venue costing a whopping £365 million will be opening its doors on Tuesday. The opening ceremony will feature two performances by well-known comedian Peter Kay and fortunately tickets for these shows are still up for grabs.

Upcoming performances by Take That, the Killers, Eric Clapton, Barry Manilow and Olivia Rodrigo are scheduled to take place soon at the venue. Also, there are plans to host the MTV Europe music awards in November.

In 2021, the building of a fresh arena started and it is being funded by the City Football Group, which belongs to the wealthy Emirati royal Sheikh Mansour, and the prominent real estate and sports firm in America, Oak View Group.

Harry Styles, who lived just 30 miles away during his childhood, has a small ownership percentage and offered input on the design elements. The layout consists of four black boxes stacked on top of each other, with a matching black interior.

The Manchester council warmly received the arena, with their leader, Bev Craig stating that the establishment would bring about a tremendous upliftment for the local economy and yield substantial gains for the city, commercially and otherwise.

Nevertheless, there were doubts regarding the necessity of creating yet another sizable musical location merely a couple of miles away from the Manchester AO arena which can hold up to 21,000 people.

During the planning process, the AO arena and Co-op Live had disagreements. AO arena objected multiple times to Co-op Live's proposals. One of the objections was to a licensing application that AO arena deemed illegal, as it would permit the new arena to serve alcohol until 2am on weekends and 24 hours a day on 25 occasions annually. This caused tension between the two venues.

The lawyers of Co-op Live made an argument during the meeting at Manchester town hall in February, claiming that the objection was nonsensical and insincere.

The Music Venue Trust (MVT) criticized Co-op Live for refusing to participate in a £1 fee per ticket that supports MVT's "pipeline investment fund" for smaller music venues.

The MVT issued a warning about the critical situation that grassroots music and arts venues are currently experiencing. In an interview with The Guardian, they stated that "the entire ecosystem is deteriorating."