Bruno Mars, Noah Kahan, Guns N’ Roses are among the touring acts helping the Vancouver venue break records this year.
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B.C. Place may have permanently entered pop history when Taylor Swift ended her record-breaking The Eras Tour with three sold-out shows at the arena in 2024. But the 43-year-old Vancouver venue is breaking its all-time record for hosting major concert tours in 2026.
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Having just finished up hosting the World Cup, global stars AC/DC, Noah Kahan and Guns n’ Roses are all rolling through the venue in August. And Bruno Mars is set to play five back-to-back shows on The Romantic Tour in October.
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In total, the venue will host 10 major music events in 2026. The previous highest number of concert nights at B.C. Place was seven in 2024, with the largest production that year being Coldplay’s multi-stage set.
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Chris May, general manager of stadium operator PavCo, says this is only the beginning for the future of Western Canada’s largest multi-purpose stadium.
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“Pre-pandemic, it was typically four a year, which dropped to three in 2025 due to the capital upgrades for FIFA,” said May. “This year, it’s 10 which is incredible, and it started with the return of Diljit Dosanjh. He previously set a world record for the biggest Punjabi artist performance outside of India when he performed in 2024 and then went on to conquer the world. He wanted to return to launch his next tour here, too.”
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May notes the realities of stadium touring today sees more major artists choosing to set up shop in one city for a run of dates rather than hitting more markets. With a West Coast location that’s easily reached from Canada, the U.S. and many Asian destinations, Vancouver has ample opportunity to become an even busier live entertainment destination.
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“We have such a unique advantage here in Vancouver to benefit from the increase in stadium tours, and I would love to see us do something that included us and Rogers Arena to put us on the map,” he said. “Artists’ fees, since the collapse of recorded music revenues and touring expenses, have all increased exponentially, so it makes sense to do more shows at fewer venues to save costs.
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“For something like the Bruno Mars run, we were pretty confident about three shows but didn’t think there would be a fifth.”
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Having B.C. Place enjoying the same level of bookings as venues such as Wembley Stadium in London or SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles is certainly something May wants to see continue. Of course, the logistics of big tour production builds and tear downs presents more than a few nuts-and-bolts challenges.
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A perfect example of this is the back-to-back Noah Kahan and Guns n’ Roses shows happening at the end of this month.
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That’s where promoter representatives and production managers like Bud Wandrei come in. With a resume that includes David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Coldplay and more, Wandrei finds solutions for stadiums and has worked at B.C. Place since its opening.
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“Logistics are different for every show. With a show like U2’s 360 requiring 110 trucks and a five crane build, that takes a multiple days to finish while others you can do in a day,” he said.
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For the upcoming back-to-back dates from different artists, Wandrei says they’re doing something that they’ve never done before.
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“Noah and Guns is the first time we’ve ever used the same stage as the two artists came together on a design that suited each of them,” he said. “Noah will be loaded out by 3:30 a.m. and we will start rigging Guns right after, because there are very different requirements for everything from dressing rooms and catering to seating plans and barricade placements.”
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Sharing steel, as stage sets are called, is very rare.
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Wandrei says it is common for artists to have multiple stages on the road, so you can play Edmonton one night and have Calgary being built for the following evening, for example, hopscotching sets across the continent. Real problems arise securing seating, barricades and experienced crews.
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“Arenas like Rogers usually have their own stages and such, but the massive stadiums are different,” he said. “I have to bring in chairs from A1 Rentals in Regina, as nobody else has them in Western Canada, and find enough people with the very specific expertise in building, running and tearing down a show. On a night where you have a concert at the PNE, Rogers and B.C. Place, that is not easy to plan out.”
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It takes hundreds of people to put on a major concert. While jobs like lighting rigger or sound person are easy to see in action, backstage, there is an entire other world where professionals such as Vicki Duong do specific jobs such as wardrobe handling.
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“I got involved in concert wardrobing when I was working at Hudson’s Bay and got to know a lot of the tour stylists who would come in to buy production items,” said Duong. “They needed extra hands for the Taylor Swift 1989 Tour (in 2015), and after working it, I signed up with Riggit Services Inc. for on-call wardrobe work. That can include everything from steaming outfits to organizing inventory and more.”
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Like Wandrei, she says each show is different.
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A Taylor Swift show can have dozens of people working wardrobe, where other tours might just be “me all alone in a room somewhere backstage.” Duong notes she doesn’t get to see many of the shows that she works.
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All of these experts plying their trade behind the scenes are what makes the magic happen when you enter B.C. Place for a concert. With its recent FIFA 2-star certification, the highest rating possible for a World Cup staging site along with history-making musical moments, the 54,000-seat space seems set to become one of a select few destination locations in the region for superstar appearances.
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“We’ve done a lot for the South Asian community with the Diljit shows and cricket, and I think we need to expand that to encompass the tastes of all British Columbians,” he said. “As I look to the future, while I can’t name a specific artist in the genre, I really want K-Pop in the room.”
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With genre superstars BTS adding dates to its World Tour Arirang and BlackPink having no 2027 dates yet on the books, May’s wish may just come true.
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