People living next to Santiago Bernabéu venue say gigs – including those by Taylor Swift – are ruining their lives and are taking action.
Although best known for the past eight decades as the home of Real Madrid, the ground, which has just undergone a five-year, €900m (£756m) refurbishment, has over the past four months been hosting a series of high-profile concerts.
If the gigs have helped put the Bernabéu on the map with visiting singers such as Taylor Swift, Luis Miguel and, for four consecutive nights this week, the Colombian star Karol G, they have driven local residents to despair. Some have taken to referring to the stadium as a torturódromo, or torture-drome.
Fed up with decibels far exceeding legal levels, fans camping out in parks, drunk people urinating in doorways and the blocking off of residential roads, an association representing those living around the Bernabéu in the Chamartín neighbourhood is taking legal action against those responsible, including Madrid city council.
“It’s just hideous – you can’t move your car, you can’t take the dog out, and you’re having to prepare yourself mentally because it’s awful,” says De Pontevès. “It also creates health problems – lots of us are suffering from more frequent headaches, stress, anxiety and depression.”
So now it doesn’t seem so bad surrounding stadiums with massive parking lots.
Edit: why are you booing me? I’m right!
Well, those massive parking lots are a thing because 100% of the attendance comes in a car.
It happens that in European cities, the majority of people go to those mega-events events by public transit or Taxi.
Are you going to put parking lots just to burn up space? If that was the case, then no need for asphalt, trees absorb sound better than asphalt.
Lisbon’s big arena is in a fast to reach part of the city that is surrounded by a lot of stores and offices and basically no housing. That’s the way to do it. Is a 3 minute walk away from the subway.
I was mostly joking, I think going to an arena by car is downright stupid and I’ve been trapped in traffic, even though we left early to “beat traffic”.
I have also experienced an european event and we left by being mashed in a crowded carriage like the potatoes you love so much.
So swings and roundabouts, but I’ll still take the sub rather than the car.
Yeah there are real advantages, the o2 arena in London is well placed too - surrounded on three sites by the river and a big carpark to the south.