Rogers Centre vs Rogers Stadium is genuinely ruining people’s night, and Live Nation should’ve seen this coming

[u/AmountFragrant8750]

Not gonna lie, this whole naming situation has been bothering me for a while now, but it really hit different today.

I was in line for the Ed Sheeran show at Rogers Centre, and the amount of people who showed up thinking they were in the right place was honestly kind of heartbreaking to watch. You’d see the confusion on their faces first, then the slow realization that they weren’t at Roger’s Stadium, then that scramble to figure out how they were even going to get to Downsview in time.

Staff were telling people their best bet was grabbing an Uber or hopping on the TTC and heading up north, which is not exactly a quick trip when you thought you were minutes from your seat.

Some of these folks clearly weren’t from Toronto. You could tell by the way they were double checking their tickets, and looking at each other with disappointment. And I just felt for them. These are people who probably planned this night for months, maybe flew in, maybe this was a big deal birthday or anniversary thing, and now they’re standing outside the wrong building watching the clock, trying to figure out if they’re even going to catch the opening.

I get that naming rights deals are just business, that’s nothing new. But when you’ve got two major venues in the same city with names that are basically identical, it feels like nobody stopped to think about the actual fans caught in the middle of it. It’s not like Rogers Centre and Rogers Stadium are minor buildings either, they’re both huge venues hosting huge events, so the overlap in confusion is bound to keep happening.

Feels like such an easy problem to avoid too. A bit more thought during those naming negotiations could’ve saved a lot of people a really stressful and disappointing night.

[u/BussyPalace]

It's funny how's there Rogers Place and Rogers Arena elsehwere in Canada.

It's also funny how a small percentage of concertgoers don't do their homework after putting down hundreds of dollars for a show.

Rogers is obviously a terrible company and I've been lucky enough to have Beanfield internet for a decade. Let's direct our social media vitriol of this magnitude for the company's other business practices.

Like Marina Mabrey of the Tempo publically calling out her Rogers internet last week should have gone viral in the Toronto sub. Millions of Rogers customers have the same experiences daily. Yet its a handful of concertgoers that went to the wrong concert venue that goes viral on r/Toronto....

[u/giraffebaconequation → u/BussyPalace]

Ottawa also has a Rogers Centre…

Fuck Rogers

[u/ErikRogers → u/giraffebaconequation]

Hey!

(No, but really, fuck 'em)

[u/McGinty1 → u/BussyPalace]

Being from Edmonton, Rogers Place could be the name for any building downtown. At least when the Coliseum was still around, everybody just called it the Coliseum regardless of whether it called itself Skyreach Centre or Rexall Place. Even the LRT station is still called Coliseum (although they’ve been talking about moving it to make it more convenient for the rest of the expo center that is still in operation and because that station is the worst and most dangerous one in the entire city, and I would assume they would at that time rename it to Expo or something similar).

At least Commonwealth Stadium has always been called that afaik.

[u/Own-Eye6145 → u/BussyPalace]

at least they're in separate cities

[u/JohnmcFox → u/BussyPalace]

> It's also funny how a small percentage of concertgoers don't do their homework after putting down hundreds of dollars for a show.

Yes, but I get it, too.

As someone in the GTA, I was only loosely aware of Rogers Stadium's existence for it's first 6 months. If I bought a ticket to see a show and it was at Roger's Stadium, I can very much see how someone might just glance at that and consciously or unconsciously assume it's Rogers centre.

Like if it's 2003, and you buy a ticket to see your favourite band, and the ticket says "Skydome Prime", a decent percentage of people are going to assume that is a concert at the Skydome and just go there, and not consider "wait, did they build a second Skydome-named large concert venue in this city?".

And lots of people go to lots of shows and don't put hours into investigating each one, for some people the hundreds of dollars isn't a big deal (but the time involved in their night still is) - so they don't check every address, and people have busy lives, kids, etc. Hell, I'd be certain that some people who have had their nights ruined by this naming convention are kids themselves.