Hamilton TD Coliseum Renovations | ?m | 4s | OVG | BBB

The amount of people downtown this weekend for the 2 night Twice concert was insane, sidewalks, stores and restaurants all packed. Most restaurants had lineups and it wasn't just the hour or two or before the concert it was all day long! I think the warmer weather helped but these big concerts have such a huge impact on the local economy and I love to see it!
 
Ya, it's pretty noticeably busy downtown for these events. GO is getting some good use too, but they really need to offer a slightly later train for concert nights. We looked it up and noticed there was the last train the other night at 11:23PM which isn't late enough in my opinion considering many concerts let out between 10:50-11:00PM and it's about a 10-15 minute walk from TD Coliseum to West Harbour. Considering you don't usually get to walk straight from your seat to the street in 1 minute, it's a bit tight. They should really try to have the 11:23, and a 11:43 or 11:53 train.

Overall though, it seems like things are going well. If this keeps up, we're likely going to see a ton of vacant units filled immediately as the summer is going to be packed downtown.
 
Chris R. said:
Ya, it's pretty noticeably busy downtown for these events. GO is getting some good use too, but they really need to offer a slightly later train for concert nights. We looked it up and noticed there was the last train the other night at 11:23PM which isn't late enough in my opinion considering many concerts let out between 10:50-11:00PM and it's about a 10-15 minute walk from TD Coliseum to West Harbour. Considering you don't usually get to walk straight from your seat to the street in 1 minute, it's a bit tight. They should really try to have the 11:23, and a 11:43 or 11:53 train.

Overall though, it seems like things are going well. If this keeps up, we're likely going to see a ton of vacant units filled immediately as the summer is going to be packed downtown.
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Great to hear about the TWICE takeover.

And they definitely do need later trains. I think they had the final train leave around 11:40 for last year's Arkells Rally at the stadium and for the Paul McCartney opening gig at TD. Hopefully it happens more often.

But what will lead to the downtown being packed? Just summer in general? There are only eight dates booked at TD for all of June, July, August so far and most of the events are not massive draws. I don't know how many more things will be booked there for the summer, but there is a lot of competition from Scotiabank and the amphitheatre and Rogers Stadium and festivals in terms of concerts.
 
BCTed said:
Great to hear about the TWICE takeover.

And they definitely do need later trains. I think they had the final train leave around 11:40 for last year's Arkells Rally at the stadium and for the Paul McCartney opening gig at TD. Hopefully it happens more often.

But what will lead to the downtown being packed? Just summer in general? There are only eight dates booked at TD for all of June, July, August so far and most of the events are not massive draws. I don't know how many more things will be booked there for the summer, but there is a lot of competition from Scotiabank and the amphitheatre and Rogers Stadium and festivals in terms of concerts.
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For one, summer brings a ton of people out to downtown Hamilton. The idea that it's a dead zone is crazy to me because it's basically jammed with people all summer. Even yesterday, a sunny Sunday with positive temps brought hundreds of people out and about roaming the central city.

With closed James St art crawls attracting thousands once a month, multiple concerts, and other venues and events at restaurants, I expect the downtown to be busier than it's ever been.

I expect NeYo and Akon to be pretty busy, but I am surprised they don't have more summer events. I expect them to potentially grab more, but it's also their first summer so I suspect they'll have more the following summer considering many events are booked a year or more in advance and they're still finding their footing around Toronto Rock, and potentially AHL/OHL team.
 
I-dle and Bryan Adams were just recently added to August, so it seems it's not too late to gain more summer bookings. Hopefully they can fill it out more.
Take away the 4 Rush dates and Scotiabank Arena doesn't have much more for June, July and August. Rogers Arena in Vancouver looks slow in the same months as well.

Maybe this is normal for arenas during the summer? I haven't paid attention before, but thinking back to my much younger years I can't remember ever going to a concert in an indoor venue during the summer.

Outdoor venues like the Amphitheatre do really well in the summer months.
 
I didn't know if Chris' comment about the downtown being busy in summer was tied to the arena.

Ne-Yo and Akon appear to be a particularly poor draw in Hamilton. When I last checked, there were far more available seats in Hamilton than any other Canadian city other than Saskatoon.

I was just suggesting that Scotiabank is more of a point of competition in the summer because there are more available dates. That said, there are 25 event dates booked there from June to August compared to TD's eight. Take away Rush and it is still 21 to 8.
 
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Stec said:
The amount of people downtown this weekend for the 2 night Twice concert was insane, sidewalks, stores and restaurants all packed. Most restaurants had lineups and it wasn't just the hour or two or before the concert it was all day long! I think the warmer weather helped but these big concerts have such a huge impact on the local economy and I love to see it!
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for a brief moment did it seem like Toronto level vibrancy? 😀
 
Wigs said:
for a brief moment did it seem like Toronto level vibrancy? 😀
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When Michelle Obama was here many years ago, it felt like downtown Toronto. It was absolutely packed to the gills. Someone we were acquaintances with came to visit art crawl and was blown away and we had to let them know we'd never seen it that busy.
 
Civdis said:
I love it, there should be special late GO trains leaving Hamilton for Toronto. I love the role reversal!
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I was glad to see people on Reddit asking about how to get to Union from Hamilton after a concert. I honestly never thought I'd see the day that people were travelling *from* Union to Hamilton. That's the power of *Regional Rail*!
 
Wigs said:
for a brief moment did it seem like Toronto level vibrancy? 😀
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Close lol. Definitely peak levels of vibrancy for Hamilton! I walk out my building and the amount of people outside seemed like a massive festival like Supercrawl was happening lol
 
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