Company behind 8500-capacity Edinburgh Arena say the capital was identified as key city for new music venue

AEG Europe, which operates 325 venues across the world including The O2 in London, secured planning permission for an £80 million arena in Edinburgh Park one year ago, with plans to open the highly anticipated venue by early 2028.

The leading entertainment group told the Evening News that Edinburgh is missing out on a number of shows due to a lack of suitable venues in the city and say the new indoor arena is estimated to bring £520 million in gross value to the Edinburgh economy and attract 700,000 customers each year.

Construction for the Edinburgh Park Arena is expected to begin in early 2027 | AEG Europe

Alistair Wood, executive vice president of AEG Europe, said: “Arenas can drive a huge amount of investment into the rest of the city - the O2 is estimated to contribute hundreds of millions of pounds each year into the wider London ecnomy and we think the same will happen in Edinburgh. And when we did a gap analysis of Europe we identified Edinburgh as one of the key cities that we really wanted to be in.

“What we saw when we opened the O2 in London and the Uber Arena in Berlin, is that these buildings tend to unlock huge amounts of latent demand and we see a similar kind of effect hopefully happening in Edinburgh.

“So we are now working towards a position where we can sign a building contract in December that would allow us to start works on the site in January or in the first quarter of 2026.”

AEG Europe hopes to host 150 shows a year at the Edinburgh Park Arena including concerts, comedy shows, boxing and festival shows | AEG Europe

AEG originally looked to find a site in Edinburgh’s city centre, but due to challenges owing to its World Heritage Site status, proposals were then put forward to build the indoor arena at the Edinburgh Park being developed by Parabola.

Mr Wood said: “We promote a lot of shows in Scotland in other buildings through AEG Presents so we knew from ticket sales data that there's huge demand for tickets in Edinburgh. We also look at Spotify data and other metrics which showed that per capita Edinburgh's got the third highest consumption of music in the UK.

“We knew that there was a great potential there but when it comes to venues in Edinburgh, there are smaller ones with a capacity of 2,000 and then there's a huge gap right the way up to Murrayfield, so in essence what is happening is all that demand is being served up by venues elsewhere unless the act is big enough to fill Murrayfield - and there's not many acts that can do that.

“As things stand, we know for sure that Edinburgh is missing out on events that it could be hosting at the moment, and from looking at ticket sales data, we felt like an 8,500-capacity venue was right number and is big enough to accommodate a very wide range of acts. What we look to do with all our venues is bring a level of hospitality and facilities that really make it a great experience and give customers great access, which hopefully will create more demand for music events.”

‘New iconic venue’

Edinburgh’s new indoor arena has yet to be named, with its title set to come from the business that invests in the venue.

Paul Samuels, president of global partnerships at AEG Europe, said using a naming rights partner for venues has proved to be a great success, with examples from their portfolio being the Uber Arena in Berlin, the O2 in London and the Accor Arena in Paris.

Mr Samuels said: “The world of naming rights has come a long way in the last a few years. That’s part of our business model that we have around the world and we’re now in the market looking for naming partners who want to be associated with this new iconic venue.

Paul Samuels said: “The O2 showed me that naming rights works. I always remember people telling me no one is ever going to call it the O2 they're going to call it the Dome. But we insisted it would work and found that to be the case within weeks" | AEG Europe

“Before the O2, no venue in the UK had naming rights, but history tells us it was a great deal and now everyone around the world knows about the O2. Naming rights partners can bring a lot of value, not only from a monetary perspective but it can also help elevate experiences and create a better venue.

“O2 customers get the right to buy tickets for before anybody else, they get quicker access into the venue, access to private lounges etc, so the idea is everyone that comes to the O2 should have an amazing experience but if you're an O2 customer you have even better experience.

“The new Edinburgh arena will have a commercial name and we've got find the brands that we believe is right for the market, right for the venue and also great for the consumer that go there.

“We've had some great conversations with people and there’s a lot of interest already but we're in the very early stages at the moment. Scotland is a huge market and there's lots of brands that want to tap into that – it’s not very often that there’s an opportunity to own something so big in a major city like Edinburgh.”