Sunderland’s Stadium of Light is preparing for the arrival of the world’s biggest girl band later this week.
Almost 50,000 music-lovers will be arriving on Wearside on Thursday to witness the Spice Girls take to the stage as part of their Spice World tour.
The concert involves a huge production, which means the Wearside audience can expect a spectacular show from their music idols. Over 70 trucks are bringing in the vast amount of equipment needed for the extravaganza and the stage build will take several days to complete.
The concert promoter and hundreds of set-up crew moved on-site over the weekend to begin the huge task of preparing the stadium. The vast infrastructure required to host the show is being installed and crowd barriers, handrails, LED boards and advertising hoardings have already been removed from around the playing field and a special surface is being laid which covers the entire pitch.
An external courtyard area, designed to house pre-show entertainment, food courts and bars, has been constructed, giving concert-goers an ideal area to meet pre-show.
Sunderland AFC’s head of operations, Dave Moses, said: “Preparing the stadium for a concert is a huge task and our team is working hard to ensure that we will be in a fantastic shape for the show.
“There is a tremendous amount of planning goes into a major event such as this, from safety, facilities, catering and of course with our partners across the region such as the city council and transport agencies. The end result of all of this work will be a fantastic event for the concert-goers and we are all looking forward to what is set to be a spectacular show.”