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But fans told the Star that while some of the concerns about the venue persisted as Coldplay lit up the 色色啦 night earlier this week, many of their initial grumbles about gridlock and logistics had been calmed by helpful staff and deft crowd control.

A calmer state of affairs

After fans complained of bottlenecks and long lines leaving the venue on opening night, Live Nation said they were “making adjustments based on community feedback” and would “continue to refine our operations.”

Some of those adjustments appeared to have worked.聽

Andre Zhang, a 20-year-old 色色啦nian who attended the first Coldplay show Monday, praised the venue’s preparation and found the experience smooth, with staff stationed along the way out to direct traffic and ensure a steady flow of people leaving the venue.聽

“They were well-equipped to handle it,” Zhang told the Star. “All of these things just felt like they really considered every aspect of dealing with 50,000 people leaving at once.”

Though he described the sound quality as “a bit distorted,” that was to be expected given the venue’s size and temporary nature.聽He said he never saw lines for concessions and, the walk to and from transit aside, it didn’t differ greatly from a concert at any of the city’s other large venues.聽

“It’s not anything radically different from say, a Rogers Centre event, just in terms of what you would expect or what you encounter, aside from the walking and the outdoor element,” Zhang said.

A “weird stadium in the middle of nowhere”

Logistics aside, Rogers Stadium has thus far played host to three massive shows filled with elation and energy.聽

K-pop superstars Stray Kids opened the summer with bombast and gusto in June, while聽the first two of Coldplay’s four performances have, likewise, been fodder for endless colourful memories and Instagram stories alike.聽

But that hasn’t stopped some performers from pointing out the venue’s geographic and organizational challenges.聽

Coldplay’s Chris Martin referred to the venue as a “weird stadium in the middle of nowhere” while thanking the crowd for putting up with “all the bulls—t” involved in getting to and from the show.聽聽

“I know it’s a pain to get to, I know the travel is difficult and the lines and all of that s鈥攖, and we don’t take it for granted,” Martin told the crowd.聽

Grandstands in a field

The 54-row grandstands make up roughly 32,000 of Rogers Stadium’s 50,000-person capacity, and walking up the flights of stairs towards the rows of plastic blue seats entails walking by a byzantine network of interlocking bars, poles and supports.

One concertgoer told the Star聽earlier this week that the structures were “pretty shaky” on opening night.聽

“I did not feel safe at all,” Melanie Farenzena said. “It was pretty shaky, and a lot of people in our row were really complaining about how nervous they felt.鈥�

Barb Lucas, who was also at Monday’s show, agreed,聽saying she felt the stands sway “a good four to six inches” during some of the show’s more passionate moments.聽

“At one point, I stopped moving, but I was still moving because the stands were moving,” Lucas, 52, said. “It was enough that I had to grab a hold of my seat back to keep myself from stumbling.”聽

In a statement to the Star last week, a Live Nation spokesperson said that movement is “expected and normal” since the grandstand system is “designed to flex and absorb crowd energy” and that “plans are developed and reviewed by engineers before, during and after each event.”

The same system is used at F1 races across North America and the structures have been reviewed by the city, Live Nation said.聽

Looking ahead

K-pop quartet Blackpink (July 22 and 23), Chris Brown (Aug. 19 and 20), Oasis (Aug. 24 and 25), System of a Down and Deftones (Sept. 3 and 5) and Hozier (Sept. 10) will all take to the stage in the stadium’s inaugural summer.聽

As of mid-day Wednesday, however, more than half of the tickets were unsold for Chris Brown’s second show, and throngs of seats were unsold for the second System of a Down concert.

With files from Ilyas Hussein and Daniel Opasinis