London's O2 Arena was built inside the Millennium Dome with no cranes
When builders set out to put an arena inside the old Millennium Dome, they hit an awkward problem: cranes would not fit under the tent. So they assembled the roof on the ground, hoisted it up, and built the rest of the arena underneath. The result became, in 2008, the busiest music arena on Earth.
The Dome went up for an exhibition marking the new millennium and, as of 2022, ranks as the world's ninth-largest building by volume, 365 metres across and 52 metres high. After that exhibition closed at the end of 2000, the site was leased in December 2001 for conversion into an entertainment district. Arena construction ran from 2003 to 2007; in between, in December 2004, the emptied Dome hosted a Christmas event for the homelessness charity Crisis. The arena building stands independently of everything else under the canopy and fills 40% of the Dome, with seating that can be reconfigured and a floor that switches between ice rink, basketball court and concert space. It was designed to cut the echo that plagues older concert halls.
Its calendar has been remarkably varied. It hosted the ATP World Tour Finals in tennis from 2009 to 2020 and was renamed the North Greenwich Arena during the 2012 Olympics because of sponsorship rules. Michael Jackson was due to begin a 50-show residency there in July 2009 but died eighteen days before the opening night. In 2022 it staged the first bout between two women to headline a major British venue, won by Claressa Shields over Savannah Marshall, and in 2025 Babymetal became the first Japanese act to headline and sell it out. Formula 1 held its first joint season launch there that February.
Weather has tested it too. During Storm Eunice in February 2022, large pieces of the fabric roof were torn away, forcing the evacuation of 1,000 people, though repairs let it reopen a week later for a UB40 concert.
Despite opening only about 200 days a year, it sold more than 1.2 million tickets in 2007, and in 2023 it still ranked as the world's third busiest music arena by ticket sales.
Source: The O2 Arena
