Bosses at the new SSE Hydro hope to lure The X Factor to their £125 million entertainment venue.
The ITV talent extravagaza currently holds arena shows at London’s O2. But executives at the Glasgow complex which will open tomorrow with the first of four Rod Stewart concerts say such shows could be tempted north of the border.
“It’s always hard to get stuff out of London because things are so centralised,” said Hydro chief executive John Sharkey.
“But when people see this building they are absolutely blown away so we’re starting with a huge asset.
“We’ve specifically designed this place to make it easy for live broadcast television so we could see a whole range of shows here.
“There is nothing we can’t accommodate.”
Building the eye-catching 12,000-capacity has been an extraordinary feat. But plans were nearly derailed in June when fire broke out in the roof, causing £5 million of damages and costly delays.
Construction crews were forced to work round the clock to get back on track for tomorrow’s opening.
And concern that the delays might be impossible to overcome meant that acts like Rod and veteran rockers Fleetwood Mac, who also play there this week, had to be reassured so they didn’t cancel.
“We kept going back constantly asking them to bear with us,” said John. “We had to tell them that it was going to go right down to the wire but we didn’t think they should be cancelling.
“The fact we’ve been staging concerts at the SECC for years was a huge help. Otherwise, if we’d told people we’d only be taking over the building a week before the first gig they’d have thought we’d gone mad.
“The guys who’ve been here 24 hours a day, seven days a week have worked miracles in getting us open.”
In fact, a month’s worth of testing work has been shoehorned into the past seven days.
Rod’s crew are coming in today to allow final tweaks before his first show.
Lights were switched on at the huge spaceship-like arena which is expected to pump an extra £131 million a year into the local economy last Wednesday, providing an impressive addition to the city’s skyline.
Homegrown acts such as Simple Minds and The Proclaimers will play the new venue in the coming weeks.
The prestigious MOBO awards are booked in too.
Project director Tom Doyle has faced the biggest challenge of his life in building the arena.
He told us: “I still shudder at the call I got saying, ‘I don’t want to worry you, but the Hydro’s on fire’,” said Tom.
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