The CEO of the new arena - with a changeable capacity of 4,000-20,000 - tells NME about changing the face of live music in the South West and feeding back into the grassroots
The boss behind Bristol's ambitious new Aviva Arena has spoken to NME about what music fans and artists can expect from the venue - set to be the third largest in the UK.
NME attended a launch event at the Concorde Museum yesterday (Thursday February 19) where the name and more details of the long-awaited 20,000 capacity arena and surrounding facilities were unveiled. It featured speeches from those involved and a performance from Tom Grennan beneath the iconic plane.
The venue was first announced back in 2020, when it was confirmed that plans to develop an arena at Bristol's Filton Airfield had been approved. It was given the working title YTL Arena Bristol, and was first scheduled to open in 2023.
Now scheduled to open in 2028, the Aviva Arena will be one of the largest venues in the country and a first of its kind for the West of England, likely to bring in around 1.4million people per year.
Work has begun to transform Brabazon Hangars into a live entertainment destination, housing the new arena in the central and largest of the three Brabazon Hangars, as well as a conference and exhibition space. It will be called YTL Live and expected to contribute an estimated £1billion to the wider Bristol economy over the first decade of operation.
It will be situated in Brabazon New Town - a whole new purpose-built residential area with facilities - and comes with a new train station on its doorstep opening later this year.
"It's incredible. We're building a new city. Homes, students, a town centre, a new train station - and the arena is at the heart of it," CEO of YTL Live Andrew Billingham told NME.
"Look back at The O2 in London's North Greenwich 25 years ago, it was an empty tent with a very industrial feel. We've got a lot of similarities to this. The big arena will be a catalyst for what we want to do for the whole city."
Asked what sets the new arena apart from others in the UK, Billingham explained how it would rival The O2 in terms of scale, driven by the heritage and history of Concorde and Supersonic as well as providing a fresh energy for the area. Beyond that, he said that Aviva would be an international destination for artists and music fans alike.
"We're building a venue for artists and crew," he said. "We've got space for 60 articulated lorries, over 20 dressing rooms, a central tunnel, end-stage access. It's for the fans as well as we've got a lot innovation and technology going in, a lot of tap and go concessions and the experience is something we're working hard on."
As well as world-beating access for ambitious live productions, Aviva's main arena will also be able to adapt from a 20,000 capacity arena down to a space to hold 4,000 - that's a transformation from a venue the size of The O2 to roughly that of Brixton Academy, allowing for a wider range of gigs.
"We want to maximise a 365 day calendar," said Billingham. "We know we can get shows in every night. We can't get a Taylor Swift every night, so we want variety and to be able to turn shows over quickly. We can host more intimate events as well as larger-scale shows."
Billingham also revealed that he hoped massive stars would set up camp at Aviva for long residencies, helped by the adjoining conference and exhibition centre for fans. It all adds up to the mission of bringing more live music back to the South West of England, which is all too often ignored by the major touring circuit.
"It's never been a touring triangle in the UK, it's been a touring spine," he said. "In Bristol we reach 16million people. That's up to 20 per cent of the UK population and a market that's always been missing. The West of England has been crying out for an arena. We'll be part of the new touring triangle."
The facilities on site were used by Queen & Adam Lambert in 2022 to rehearse and prepare for their world arena tour, with Brian May and their crew singing the praises of what was on offer and looking forward to the space opening as a venue. However, Billingham was tight-lipped if this was a clue as to the rock legends returning to the arena - and about who'd be likely to perform at the opening.
"We're having lots of conversations," he revealed. "It's the ILMC and the BRITs next week, so it's been important for us to put our marker down as the new arena [on the scene] to accelerate the conversations that we're already having.
"We want a three-month, jam-packed opening season to make sure that everyone, young and old, will have the opportunity to come through the door."
Back in 2023, a number of the UK's eight proposed new arenas were being pressured by the Music Venue Trust to invest back into grassroots music spaces or else not be allowed to open. In response at the time, YTL Live told NME that they were "developing a community strategy which includes initiatives to support up-and-coming, local artists, and we will be sharing more details of this closer to our opening date."
With Bristol as a whole hoping to become the first UK city to implement a £1 ticket levy in order to support the local music scene, pressure continues to mount for the live music industry as a whole to see that 50 per cent of all gigs at arena level and above are paying into the levy. If this is not done voluntarily by June 30, then the government will move to make it mandatory by law.
As for how Aviva will be working towards this, Billingham told NME: "We're absolutely committed to supporting the wider music ecosystem. We've always made it known that we want to support headline artists, but also grassroots artists and venues as well. We're very well-versed in what the Music Venue Trust are doing and we will develop our plans over the coming months and years.
"We do want to support local artists. We've got a community stage here, one of the green rooms will have a recording studio and we're looking to do stuff in the town centre. We're not waiting three years to open; we want to do this now.
He added: "We're looking very closely at the levy and what everyone else is doing, but we're absolutely committed to making sure we're taking our responsibility seriously. Without the grassroots, we don't get the headline artists of the future."
Last month it was revealed that 30 grassroots venues were lost forever between July 2024 and July 2025, and last year alone saw more than half of those remaining making no profit and over 6,000 jobs lost. This poses an existential threat to the future talent pipeline of the country's world-renowned live music industry. Read more on how the levy plan is predicted to reverse this trend, what happens next and what's holding it back here.
