...BMO Field has held precisely one concert - Genesis - since it was built. And that was the year it opened in 2007.
It was a logistical nightmare there is no backstage area so they used the area behind the stadium against the food building and made it so no one could pass through it except for staff from the band.
BMO Field also had artificial turf then during its first 2 or 3 years, and now there would be a concern about damaging the grass hybrid field. Much like hockey arenas, football stadiums don't make very good concert venues because of their seating configurations. But a January 2014 Globe And Mail article gave another reason -- "Thanks to several union contracts between the city and everyone from the electrical and sound staff to concessions workers and the ushers, it costs about $100,000 every time Toronto FC plays at BMO Field. That is why there are few concerts at either BMO or Ricoh Coliseum, which is governed by the same deals. Since the facility is owned by the city, there is no cutting a sweetheart deal just to land a new tenant."
I guess the grand new scheme for Exhibition/Ontario Place if it eventually happens could involve a large indoor concert facility, either enclosing the current amphitheatre or replacing it with an entirely new one.
I thought the "SkyTent"
configuration of SkyDome offered a better seating arrangement than an arena. I think it would probably still be possible to have something like that through the winter in the 6-month baseball off-season when Rogers Centre has gone entirely unused in recent years. Presumably there could be some way to set-up curtains and a sound system to provide acceptable acoustics. The cavities in the concrete floor (for the baseball infield, which have to be refilled every spring anyway) can be covered over with plastic or metal plating. And by the way, even when they were still looking into the concept of grass in Rogers Centre, the idea was also to put down a new field every spring with no intention to leave it there through the following winter after the baseball season ended in the fall.
And as previously mentioned,
many current MLB stadiums including those with grass fields routinely have some small number of concerts each summer.
With
three MLB stadiums in just the last two years switching away from grass to artificial turf (bringing the total to five), I'm not sure having a grass field for the Blue Jays is the imperative some seem to think. Having a big indoor stadium that could be used year-round and particularly through winter had always seemed like a good thing to me. Other than perhaps no event promoter has wanted to use it, I'm not sure why it sits completely empty during October to March. As long as the lower bowl seats can still move into the parallel configuration (and they can -- the cavities for the dirt infield do not prevent it, as it was done after those were put in), it could also be still be used for football and soccer during that time of year, though it may require purchasing an expensive artificial turf field (different from baseball) just for that purpose. While
Toronto FC has had games at BMO Field in November, December, and February, it hasn't been an ideal situation.
... LED lighting in the rafters would be pretty cool - make it seem a little less gloomy on closed roof nights.
I recall that being a complaint 31 years ago when it opened -- 'the closed roof makes it look and feel like being inside a huge airplane hangar' -- and someone involved with running the new stadium saying something might be done about it in the next year or two. But since nothing was done, and it appears the underside of the roof in the other stadiums look similar, I assume there isn't anything practical that can be done? The outfielders need to be able to see fly balls without losing them in lights or against a background of a white ceiling.
...SoFi = $4.9bn
It's an utterly absurd amount of money to waste on this stupidity. Should be a nonstarter from the get go.
And, was a roof really necessary in Los Angeles?
urbantoronto.ca
