Wembley Arena
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Wembley Arena is a world famous live entertainment venue, located in Wembley, London. The building is opposite Wembley Stadium. It was built for the 1934 Empire Games and originally housed a swimming pool, as reflected by its former name, the Empire Pool. The pool itself was last used for the 1948 Summer Olympics.
The Arena has played host to many well known music artists over the past 70 years, such as Madonna, Crowded House, AC/DC, ABBA, New Kids On The Block, The Cult, The Cure, The Beatles, Gary Numan, Jason Donovan, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Meat Loaf, Blur, Queen, Oasis, Coldplay, Duran Duran and The Offspring.
Indoor sporting events such as boxing and ice hockey have long been popular at the Arena, notably the World Championship bout between then champion Alan Minter and challenger Marvin Hagler, which the latter won. The Wembley Lions and Wembley Monarchs were two ice hockey teams that used the venue during the 40s, 50s and 60s and Wembley hosted the British Hockey League play-off finals weekend at the end of each season up until the league's disbandment in 1996.
The Arena also hosts highly successful comedy nights, with comedians such as David Baddiel having appeared. His appearance alongside Rob Newman in 1993 is widely regarded as being responsible for bringing alternative comedy into the mainstream.
In addition, Wembley Arena is also famous for it's Disney on Ice shows. The most recent was the show based on Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 2 in 2004. Because of the refurbishment to the arena, there was no show in 2005.
Wembley Arena was renovated along with Wembley Stadium as part of the regeneration of the Wembley area. The Arena refurbishment cost £35m and the new arena opened to the public on April 2nd, 2006 with a concert by Depeche Mode.
Artists set to play the "new" venue include Madonna, Take That, Cliff Richard, Il Divo, McFly, Santana and Girls Aloud. World Wrestling Entertainment are set to tape editions of their TV shows RAW and SmackDown! at Wembley Arena in April 2006.
As of January 25th, 2006, the venue forms part of Live Nation's (ClearChannel Entertainment) UK line-up alongaside the Carling Apollo London, Manchester, Edinburgh Playhouse, Hallam FM Arena in Sheffield and Manchester Opera House.