Rihanna Set To Sparkle In Sunderland
20 June 2013, 10:20 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50
Rihanna's bringing her Diamonds World Tour to Sunderland's Stadium of Light.
RiRi will be supported on stage by 'We Are GTA' (approx 6pm) who will open the show with David Guetta taking over (approx 6:45pm) before the pop princess takes to the stage (approx 8:30pm).
Travel Info
Nexus, who run the Tyne and Wear Metro, say extra late trains will be running until approximately 0045 to get people home from the concert.
After the concert, customers should use St Peter's or Stadium of Light as additional trains will not be stopping at Sunderland.
Last Train Times
* Last train from St Peter's to Manors via the coast 0045
* Last train from St Peter's to Airport via Newcastle city centre 0058
* Last train from Sunderland to South Hylton 0020
* To make the last connecting train which leaves Pelaw at 0108 for South Shields, you will need to get the 0054 train from St Peter's
Customers are advised to buy a Rihanna special event ticket in advance to avoid queuing for a ticket on the day.
Catering
The home of Sunderland AFC will have over 2000 staff on duty for the show to facilitate a mammoth catering operation.
Catering for concerts is quite literally a whole different ball game to football matches however, with significantly larger crowds, many of whom are in the stadium for in excess of six hours, in contrast to less than two hours for a normal Premier League game.
An extensive range of food and beverage options will be on offer throughout the day to tempt discerning concert-goers, including pizzas, burgers, wraps, confectionary, along with Champagne, beer, wine and more.
· Roughly 20,000 pizzas will be sold across the three shows - enough to cover the entire Stadium of Light pitch.
· Some 60,000 burgers will be consumed, which, if stacked one on top of one another, would be taller than the stadium's main West Stand.
· If laid end to end, the estimated 75,000 hot dogs that will be purchased would reach from the home of Sunderland AFC to Gateshead Stadium.
Gary Hutchinson, SAFC's commercial director, said:
"Of course our team has vast experience of dealing with large-scale catering operations, from football matches through to events such as Northern Pride with our external catering company '1879 Events', but the concerts do provide us with a different challenge, in terms of both crowd dynamics and timings.
People spend much longer in the stadium for a concert than they do for a football match so there is additional pressure on the food and beverage operation throughout the day and evening.
Much more food and drink is consumed than at an average football match and it's important for us to maintain the highest standards of service, without compromising on the quality that we are renowned for - and our in-house team is really looking forward to the challenge."
The Diamonds World Tour is RiRi's fifth concert tour which was launched to support her seventh studio album Unapologetic.
The tour began back in March in Buffalo, New York.
Rihanna has just overtaken Justin Bieber to the crown of most YouTube views.
The 'You Da One' singer's promos have notched up over 3.8 billion views, a million more than Bieber.
