Cardiff has just hosted the biggest live music event Wales has ever seen. Metallica brought their record breaking M72 World Tour to Principality Stadium, drawing a crowd of 76,000 and setting a new attendance record for the venue, beating the previous record held by Ed Sheeran in 2022.
It was the American band’s first appearance in the city in thirty years, and their long-awaited Principality Stadium debut. The production was staged in the round, with the stage built into the heart of the pitch so fans had a 360-degree view of the show from every seat in the house, a scale of production rarely seen on this side of the Severn.
For a city that has built its reputation on staging major sporting occasions, the concert is another marker of Cardiff’s growing standing as a destination for world class live entertainment, sitting alongside rugby internationals, boxing world title fights and major football finals on the stadium’s roster.
A boost for the city
Mark Williams, Stadium Director at Principality Stadium, said the venue was proud to welcome the band for the first time. “Hosting the biggest live music event ever in South Wales is another landmark moment in our history of staging world class live entertainment alongside some of the biggest sporting occasions in the world,” he said. “It was fantastic to welcome thousands of visitors to Cardiff and deliver an unforgettable experience for fans, while also showcasing everything our city and stadium has to offer.”
With fans travelling into the city from across Wales and beyond for the show, the concert is expected to have given a significant lift to local hotels, bars, restaurants and shops over the weekend, the kind of visitor spending that has become a familiar pattern around Principality Stadium’s biggest events.
The truth is, as great as the Principality Stadium is, we need more live music venues in Cardiff.
Giving blood rocks
The tour’s visit also did some good off stage. To mark the stop in Cardiff, the Welsh Blood Service ran dedicated donation sessions across Wales from 22 June to 3 July, the week either side of the concert, encouraging fans and the wider public alike to roll up a sleeve in the band’s honour.
Thirty years on from their last visit, Metallica have left Cardiff with a new entry in the record books, and the city with another high profile event to add to its growing reputation as one of Europe’s leading live entertainment destinations.
Photo credit: Gareth Everett/Principality Stadium
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