NME, dubbing the situation “just a joke at this point”.Yesterday (May 1) thousands of people made their way, again, to Manchester’s new Co-Op Live, the recently-built “largest in-door arena” in the UK. With a grand opening that’s been marred by pushbacks, reschedules, controversial comments about grassroots venues being “poorly run”, and the executive director resigning: the new gig space has been beleaguered by a series of chaotic issues.Aside from a test event featuring Rick Astley for which some tickets were cancelled, reducing the audience to 11,000, the venue has yet to run a show successfully on the day it was originally scheduled.It was supposed to open with performances from Peter Kay on April 23 and 24, but the shows were moved to April 29 and 30 due to the venue’s power testing falling “a few days” behind schedule.
