The beleaguered Co-op Live arena has postponed gigs by the comedian Peter Kay for the second time, on the day its general manager resigned over delays to opening the venue.
A number of gigs have been rescheduled at the 23,500-capacity Manchester venue, which had been due to open three days ago but will now not open until May.
Kay, whose two shows had already been pushed back when the arena was beset by technical problems, once again apologised to fans, adding: “I know, I can’t believe it either.”
Gary Roden quit as general manager of the new arena after also being criticised for saying some small music venues were “poorly run”.
The venue held its first gig last Saturday, with Rick Astley as a surprise guest, performing to 11,000 arena workers, VIPs and press at a free test event. The show experienced problems including the cancellation of as many as 4,000 tickets, some one hour before the show, which left people “fuming”.
Ticket-holders were told they could attend a gig a week later by the US rock duo the Black Keys instead. However, the Co-op Live arena has also now rescheduled this gig to 15 May, with Peter Kay due to appear on 23 and 24 May.
One of the owners of the new venue said the comic had been “fantastic” and had “a good sense of humour”. The arena will now be opened by US rap artist A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie.
Confirming the rescheduling to the Manchester Evening News, Tim Leiweke, the chief executive of the sport and real estate giant Oak View Group, said: “Peter Kay has been fantastic. I can vouch, he has a very good sense of humour. God bless him. He’s agreed to push back to May 23 and 24. And that gives us a few extra days next week as well.
“I never thought A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie is going to open the building, but A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie is going to open the building.”
A Co-op Live statement thanked Roden for his “help bringing the UK’s newest arena to live entertainment fans” and wished him “the best for the future”. It said it was appointing Rebecca Kane Burton, who previously ran London’s O2 Arena, as the interim general manager.
Sited on the Etihad campus next to the Manchester City football ground, the £365m venue is scheduled to host Take That, the Killers, Eric Clapton, Barry Manilow and Olivia Rodrigo in the coming weeks, with plans to hold the MTV Europe music awards there in November.
Construction began in 2021 on the venue, which is financed by the City Football Group (owned by the billionaire Emirati Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan) and Oak View Group. While it was welcomed by city leaders, questions have been asked about whether another large-scale music venue was needed, just 2 miles from the 21,000-capacity Manchester AO arena.
Co-op Live, which contains several smaller gig rooms, has been criticised for declining to sign up to a £1-a-ticket levy that funds the Music Venue Trust’s (MVT) “pipeline investment fund” for grassroots venues.
Roden told the BBC the levy was “too simplistic”, adding that some venues were poorly run and there was no robust system to decide who got the funding. The venue later distanced itself from his comments, saying they did not represent the views of the company.
In response, the MVT told NME it was “disrespectful and disingenuous to suggest” small venues were poorly run.
It said: “Obviously, the irony of making ill-judged, unnecessary and misleading comments about grassroots music venues on the day that the launch of their new arena has unfortunately fallen into such difficulties is not lost on anyone in the music industry, on artists, or on audiences.”
