How the MCG became one of the world’s greatest live-music stadiums (2024)

Taylor Swift’s three sold-out shows at the Melbourne Cricket Ground have cemented its reputation as one of the world’s greatest live-music stadiums and are a hard act for Accor Stadium in Sydney to follow.

The MCG is one of a handful of stadiums in the world with the capacity to host a crowd of 96,000 along with Swift’s elaborate stage, and its evolution from cricket ground to both a sporting and live-music venue has happened gradually over its 171-year history.

Planning and events experts said the stadium’s unique combination of size, proximity to the city centre and extensive public transport links enabled the MCG to host the biggest crowd Swift has ever performed in front of at any stadium in the world.

Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) chief executive Stuart Fox said the club had worked hard to improve facilities at the stadium for live-music performances.

“It’s been growing in stature over a number of years as a great entertainment venue for concerts,” he said. “You’ve had the likes of Eminem, Billy Joel, Guns N’ Roses, and most recently Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.”

Sheeran played to 109,500 fans, but the largest attendance recorded for a single-day event at the MCG was the Billy Graham Crusade in 1959, with a total of 130,000 people.

Fox said the MCC had spent $25 million on a new integrated public address system that had improved acoustics around the stadium, and had added baffling to the concrete walls to stop sound bouncing around.

He said the MCG’s location close to the CBD with multiple public transport links was key to its success, but its primary purpose was still as a sporting stadium, with space on its calendar for only two major concerts a year.

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“I’ve been fortunate enough to have a look at all of the best stadiums around the world, and I’ve struggled to find anything like the MCG,” Fox said. “It’s one of the best sporting and entertainment precincts in the world in a picturesque park, immediately opposite public transport.”

Fox said Swift had appeared to be “genuinely taken aback” when she realised the scale of the crowd.

“Looking at 96,000 people inside one of the biggest stadiums in the world, I think she was blown away,” he said.

Aerial shots of Swift’s shows at the MCG on the Visit Melbourne TikTok account bewildered Swifties in the United States, whose first response was: Where do they all park?

“As an American I’m asking where are all those cars for those ppl? Just curious ppl of Australia,” one posted.

Another said: “As an American it’s wild to see such a large stadium not surrounded by never-ending parking lots.”

Dr Rebecca Clements, a University of Sydney fellow, said a bird’s-eye view of the MCG offered a “visually striking difference” to many stadiums in the US and other countries, which were often surrounded by car parks, not parklands and public transport.

“You can see the complete shock and surprise of a lot of the American people seeing the Australian example,” she said. “For Australians, this is normal. We assume in most cases you are going to be taking a train to go to see a major event in a stadium, whether it is a sporting event or Taylor Swift.”

Clements said the stadium experience was an excellent example of how to shift a car-centric mindset through environmental changes.

The comparison may not be quite as stark in Sydney, where Swift is set to perform to 80,000 people a night at Accor Stadium, 13 kilometres west of the city centre and not as centrally located for public transport.

Data from Uber shows there were more than 14,500 Uber rides to and from the MCG during Swift’s concerts over the weekend. Uber Australia managing director Dom Taylor said he expected this number to double in Sydney.

“When you take into consideration the demand for the Melbourne shows, in addition to the distance to Homebush, one extra concert and the size of the venue, it gives us an indication that demand might be slightly bigger.”

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The Daily Telegraph’s front page on Tuesday described Swift’s Melbourne shows as “warm-up events” for Sydney, but David Rowe, professor of cultural research at Western Sydney University, warned it would be difficult for the Accor stadium shows to compete.

“When it’s not right in the heart of the city, it does change the nature of the event,” he said. “That’s certainly an advantage that Melbourne has; Sydney is playing a bit of catch-up there in terms of connectivity.”

Rowe questioned whether the trend to huge crowds at concerts was a great spectator experience “if you are up in the nosebleeds”.

“In some ways, the actual experience itself doesn’t matter, it’s about ‘I was there’,” he said.

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