Plans for one of the U.K.’s most ambitious new live events venues were unveiled in Bristol on Thursday (Feb. 19).
The Aviva Arena is slated to open in late 2028 and provide a major boost for music fans in the south west of England where regular touring routes are usually forced to skip due to lack of infrastructure.
The venue is estimated to bring a £1 billion ($1.35 billion) boost to the local area in the first 10 years of operation. The complex will support 2,000 jobs during construction, with up to a further 500 permanent roles once the arena is operational. The venue is expected to house more than 120 major events every year across music, sports and entertainment.
Over the years Bristol has been the home for acts such as Massive Attack, Portishead, and IDLES, as well as a thriving and diverse underground scene in dance music, dub, punk and beyond. The city regularly hosts Forward Festival (set to be headlined by Lorde in 2026), while in recent years Ashton Gate, a 27,000-capacity football stadium, has hosted concerts by Elton John, Arctic Monkeys, Take That and Kings of Leon. Independent venues Thekla, The Fleece and The Louisiana also play an integral role in the city’s music scene.
The 20,000-capacity arena is being built on historic ground. The site in Filton Wood, north of Bristol’s city centre, was once where the Concorde plane was built in the 1960s and ‘70s. The supersonic airliner, manufactured in an Anglo-French alliance, drastically cut transatlantic travel time and is considered a feat of British engineering; it was retired in 2003 due to rising costs.
A retired jet towered over the ceremony stage which was held on site at the Brabazon Hangar. The construction is being handled by contractor YTL Live. English pop star Tom Grennan played a six-song set underneath the wings, saying that it was a ”lovely setting” and that they should “bring the Concorde back.” He added, “What you’re doing for us as artists and for music is amazing. Bristol is such a great place for music so bringing something like this is going to change the whole city.”
Plans for the Aviva Arena were first announced in 2003 with hopes to bring an indoor arena to a major city with a population of 500,000. The wider south west region has a population of over 5 million, though venues in the region are in short supply.
The arena was originally slated to be built in the city centre by the Temple Meads train station. These plans were ultimately abandoned in September 2018 due to rising costs and risk factors. Filton Airfield was subsequently identified as a viable option, though planning setbacks and costs saw the plans delayed a number of times. Ground was broken on the venue in January 2026.
The three Brabazon hangars are being converted as part of the construction with the central hangar housing the Aviva Arena. The site will also house conference and exhibition space as part of the complex. The entire site, dubbed Brabazon New Town, will also include 6,500 homes, new schools, community facilities and a train station which is set to open in 2026. Travel time into the centre of Bristol via train is expected to take 15 minutes.
The Aviva Arena will be powered by 100% electrical energy with goals to eventually go carbon neutral. The service yard is the largest in Europe and can host 60 lorries and the backstage area will include 20 state-of-the-art dressing room. The arena bowl is configurable and can host shows from 4,000 up to 20,000 capacity.
The U.K. chancellor Rachel Reeves, said that “Aviva and YTL’s landmark sponsorship commitment is a powerful endorsement of the UK as a world class place to build, to do business and to grow – exactly the kind of long-term investment this government is backing right across the country. It’s good news for people across the West of England, creating thousands of jobs and putting the region firmly on the global map for live entertainment.”
U.K. Music reported that the music industry generated £8 billion ($10.7 billion) for the economy in 2024, a 5% rise year-on-year. Grassroots music venues, however, are struggling under the weight of rising costs and the Music Venues Trust said that over half of these sites were not profitable in 2025.
Some sectors of the live industry such as large-scale venues like London’s O2 Arena have committed to a voluntary levy on tickets to support smaller spaces where artists hone their craft. A number of huge names such as Katy Perry, Coldplay, Sam Fender and more have all made donations to the LIVE Trust, which distributes funds to the grassroots music scene.
Manchester’s 23,500-capacity Co-op Live Arena was the most recent large-scale venue to be built in the U.K. and opened to the public in 2024. A new purpose-built venue in London’s Olympia (3,800 capacity) is due to open later this year.
Naming sponsor Aviva, a leading finance and insurance company, has expanded into the arts space in recent years. Since 2010, the group has lent its name to the 51,000-capacity Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland and more recently the Aviva Studios complex in Manchester, home to arts organisation Factory International. In 2025, Billboard U.K. hosted an intimate performance and fan experience at the latter with Corinne Bailey Rae.
Speaking on the naming opportunity, Aviva’s chief executive Dame Amanda Blanc said, “Bristol is an important city for Aviva, and we are proud to back this new world-class arena which will have such a positive community impact. Aviva Arena will further strengthen Bristol’s position as one of Europe’s great creative cities and become a landmark destination for the South West of England. Together with the Aviva Stadium in Dublin and Aviva Studios in Manchester, Aviva now supports three iconic venues which host the very best in sport, music and the arts, delivering lasting economic and social value.”
