Live Nation联手Center Norte建南美最大室内场馆，中资工程与设备商迎15亿雷亚尔商机

Rafael Lazarini Leo Pinheiro/Valor Event promoter Live Nation and Cidade Center Norte, a company belonging to the Baumgart group, will build an arena for concerts and sporting events in northern São Paulo with room for 21,000 people. The investment will total R$1.5 billion. The companies are selecting the contractor that will handle construction, which is expected to begin by October and be completed in 2028. The indoor arena will be located in Cidade Center Norte, a planned district that the group is beginning to develop around the Center Norte and Lar Center shopping malls and the Expo Center Norte event venue. WTorre bets on entertainment with new São Paulo arena projects Beyond leisure: cultural tourism gains traction worldwide The companies formed a joint venture for the project and will maintain their partnership after the arena opens, said Rafael Lazarini, chief operating officer of Live Nation in Brazil. The promoter holds a majority stake in the joint venture but does not disclose the percentage. Lazarini said the company had planned to build an indoor arena in São Paulo for at least eight years, but finding a suitable and financially viable site proved challenging. Cidade Center Norte, meanwhile, wanted an arena in its district and already had experience with events. “It is a combination of complementary expertise,” said Flávio Fernandes, CEO of Cidade Center Norte. Music will be the venue’s priority, but it will also be able to host other events, including basketball and volleyball games, e-sports competitions and UFC fights. The companies expect to hold more than 200 events a year. The joint venture will finance the entire investment and plans to sell the arena’s naming rights. “We have already had very preliminary discussions with some interested brands,” Lazarini said, noting that the sale would make “an important contribution to the project’s financing” because the funds would arrive during the initial construction phase under a long-term contract. Rendering of the new arena, a joint venture between Live Nation and Cidade Center Norte Divulgação Other expected revenue sources include parking operations and concessions for food and beverage sales. The arena project includes a parking garage for 2,000 vehicles. Its capacity is expected to make it the largest indoor arena in South America, according to Live Nation, which is investing in its own venues across the region. In recent months, the company acquired majority stakes in arenas in Santiago and Buenos Aires and announced plans to build a new arena near Lima. Other Brazilian cities could join the list alongside São Paulo. “We want to equip markets that lack suitable venues wherever that makes sense. We will certainly examine potential opportunities,” Lazarini said, emphasizing that no other projects are as advanced as the São Paulo development. The promoter’s goal is for this network of arenas to allow artists to add a “Latin American leg” to tours “that might not otherwise come without appropriate venues,” Lazarini said. In addition to its size, which places it between concert halls and large stadiums, the indoor arena will have infrastructure designed specifically for concerts. This will simplify production setup and allow structures to be suspended from the roof. At stadiums, which must be adapted for concerts, those structures need to be self-supporting, Lazarini explained. The arena will not have a permanent stage, allowing artists to bring their own structures. Live Nation expects Brazilian artists to make extensive use of the venue. Major names in Brazilian popular music, known as MPB, have recently performed in stadiums, but attracting audiences of more than 40,000—as at Nubank Parque, formerly Allianz Parque, for example—is challenging. “The arena will provide an intermediate venue where artists can try new things as they mature toward performing a stadium show later,” Lazarini said. It will also be able to host international tours designed for venues of this size. In an interview with Valor in May, WTorre CEO Renato Lobo, whose company manages Nubank Parque, said WTorre also plans to build indoor arenas in São Paulo. Its project calls for two venues, with capacities of 20,000 and 10,000. Mariana Aldrigui, a tourism researcher at the University of São Paulo (USP), said demand for events in the city should not be a problem. “We are behind in developing more venues like these so that we do not lose [events] to other capitals and countries,” she said. According to SPTuris, São Paulo’s municipal tourism promotion company, the city had 37 million attendances at events in the first half of the year, 13% more than during the same period in 2025. Of the total, 5.2 million were related to entertainment, including concerts. The city expects visitor numbers to rise 7% this year. The number of events increased after the pandemic, but the supply of qualified venues failed to keep pace, Aldrigui said, adding that the same trend is occurring in the trade-show and convention market. “In many cases, depending on the convention’s size, we cannot accommodate it,” she said, citing a lack of space or available dates. This demand follows a growing trend of traveling to attend live events, which has strengthened with the expansion of artificial intelligence and the ease of generating fake content, the researcher noted. A midsize venue also makes it easier to attract residency-style productions to São Paulo, in which an artist performs several shows in the same city on nearby dates. “Many artists prefer this model. Stage structures have become so large and expensive that transporting a show to multiple locations is not worthwhile,” Aldrigui said. For the Cidade Center Norte project, the arena will provide another draw for visitors. Fernandes said completing the district will take another 15 years and cost R$5 billion. That amount includes an expansion of the Center Norte shopping mall, which is still under development, and construction of a new hotel in an area that already includes the Novotel Center Norte. The group has also identified demand for a health care hub with a hospital and diagnostic clinic, as well as education and commercial facilities, including corporate towers. One commercial tower was launched in 2025 alongside three high-end residential towers with units ranging from 93 to 165 square meters. According to Fernandes, 80% of the residential units have been sold. The Center Norte group created a development company to oversee the residential projects and plans to launch another tower in the second half of the year. The district will ultimately have 6,000 apartments. Fernandes said the arena will receive acoustic treatment and should not disturb future residents. Live Nation will not have exclusive rights to use the arena and will continue holding events at concert halls and stadiums across the city, Lazarini said. The U.S.-based company faces litigation in American courts over allegations that it charged excessive ticket prices and pressured event organizers to use its Ticketmaster ticketing business. In March, it reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. When contacted, Live Nation said it could not comment on behalf of its U.S. operation. Translation: Todd Harkin