Joe GallopMore than one million people visited Wembley Stadium (cap. 90,000) this summer across 13 events such as concerts by The Weeknd, Blur and AEW’s All-In wrestling show.
The stadium, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, hosted more than 81,000 people for AEW’s All-In wrestling show in late August. It was the largest paid-attendance professional wrestling show ever, surpassing the previous record of 80,00 people set at WWE’s SummerSlam event in 1992 when the Wembley Stadium last hosted professional wrestling. Following the event AEW announced it would be returning to the venue in 2024 for another show.
Before that, Canadian pop singer The Weeknd performed his After Hours Till Dawn show to 87,000 fans – breaking the record for ticket sales at Wembley Stadium with a traditional stage set-up.
For the first time ever, this year’s rugby league Challenge Cup Finals’ Day on 12 August featured the women’s match, in a double header with the men’s final. The attendance for the men’s final was 58,213, while the women’s fixture hosted 8,338 fans.
Other events that took place between June and August include the FA Cup final; the Capital Summertime Ball; Harry Styles playing four consecutive nights to his biggest UK audience ever; and Blur performing two comeback gigs after seven years away.
Wembley Stadium director Liam Boylan said, “The screams at the Harry Styles’ concerts were some of the loudest I have ever heard, and we are still finding pink feathers in every nook and cranny of the stadium. The two Blur shows were epic. It was like the summer of Britpop all over again and those gigs will live long in the memory of everyone who saw them. We were also able to see history being made with the men’s and women’s rugby league Challenge Cup finals played here for the first time ever.”
Wembley Stadium is now preparing for October’s NFL fixture between Jacksonville Jaguars and Atlanta Falcons.
Next summer the stadium will host the UEFA Champions’ League Final for a record eight time. It will also be home to six nights of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which is expected to be the highest-grossing world tour by an artist ever.
Boylan said, “If you look back at Wembley’s history you will see that it has always hosted a diverse range of sports including greyhound races, Gaelic football, hockey and even ski-jumping. So, it is rather fitting in our 100th anniversary year we have continued that trend.”