Roundhay Park: Plans to raise gig capacity to 80,000 submitted
A city park could become one of the biggest outdoor concert venues in the country, under new plans.
Leeds City Council wants to increase capacity at Roundhay Park for "large-scale events" to almost 80,000. Currently, the capacity limit at the park for live events is just under 20,000. Ed Sheeran is set to play two nights on 16 and 17 August. The authority said it wanted to increase the scope for larger-scale live events at the park. The planned increase would put capacity on a par with London's Twickenham Stadium, Reading Festival and Old Trafford football ground in Manchester. The authority's events team states in an application form: "Roundhay Park is a city park providing a facility for the people of Leeds. "[It] has been an iconic venue for large events throughout the years. "In addition it provides a vital function for community groups and charities looking to host events to raise funds." It added that the park had previously held a licence for events capacity of 79,999, but this was reduced in 2006 due to a lack of demand at the time, the Local Democracy Reporting Service says. If the capacity expansion plan is approved it could mean a return to the glory days of the 1980s and 1990s, when the park hosted the biggest pop acts of the era. The Rolling Stones played at the park in 1982 - one of only four British venues on their European tour that year. In 1987 the park hosted Genesis, six weeks before Madonna played in front of 73,000 fans on the same site. A year later, Michael Jackson performed at Roundhay Park on his 30th birthday, while Irish rockers U2 played in front of 54,000 fans in the park as part of their PopMart tour. Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.