The Spice Girls have been the cause of many things over the years and their latest claim to fame is they were the reason for record passenger numbers of the Tyne and Wear Metro for a concert at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light for their concert held on 6th June. There were an extra 16,000 passenger journeys on the night which generated record revenue from ticket sales for a concert there.
Estimated revenue for the night was £40,000 which even beat average sales for each individual night of Ed Sheeran at St James’ Park last year. This extra revenue helped to cover costs of the extra trains and staff needed to transport concert goers on the night.
Huw Lewis, Customer Services Director at Nexus, said: “Spice Girls was a record breaking night for the Tyne and Wear Metro. We carried an extra 16,000 passengers to and from Sunderland, which is the highest footfall we have ever had for a concert at the Stadium of Light. It was a really busy night and we took a record level of revenue. It was hard work but a really fun night, the crowd were in good spirits and at times it felt like we were staging a huge karaoke singalong on our stations and trains. Metro is part of everyday life, so we also enjoy being there when the region is having a party. Staff put in a huge amount of work to make the day a success. We had extra customer services teams on duty and extra trains running to cope with the demand. Metro played a key part in delivering transport services for a very high profile event that was a huge success for the city of Sunderland and for the whole of the wider region.”
The night seemed to go off without too much issue with even the traditional queues at the stations at St Peter’s and Stadium of Light cleared within two hours of the concert ending with passengers then able to get onward connections from Pelaw and Monument to all parts of the network into the early hours.