Wembley Stadium welcomes roughly 1 ½ million football and rugby fans each year, but it also has important roles as the country’s leading venue for music concerts and allows the UK to bid for the greatest events in world sport – from the World Athletics Championship and the Olympic Games to the FIFA World Cup.

Athletics can be hosted on a specially built platform that keeps fans as close as possible to the action for football, rugby and athletics while allowing for uninterrupted views of the events.

An enormous amount of thought went into creating a great venue for concerts. The designers have provided a choice of stage locations but for most events the stage is likely to be end-on in the western side of the stadium, again bringing fans as close as possible to the stage. This location, the higher roofline of the new stadium and a new purpose-built sound system, reduce the amount of noise ‘spillage’ from the stadium.

Seats are demountable to allow quick rigging for concerts and a clean power supply has been built into the stage positions.

The old Wembley Stadium hosted many different events, from a papal visit to a charity cricket event (it was rained off). The new Stadium attracts a similarly diverse range of events and will continue to do so.