Adele in Munich was the second concert residency by English singer Adele. Organised to support her 2021 album 30, the residency was held in a temporary venue on the fairgrounds within the () complex on the outskirts of Munich, Germany, in 2024. The Weekends with Adele series was originally the only residency planned after the release of 30. However, concert promoter approached Adele's agent with a rudimentary idea for a performance in Germany and enlisted the help of his peer, . conceptualised the idea and designed a temporary open-air venue to provide an immersive environment for the audience.
Adele Arena, a stadium-sized concert venue with an amphitheatre layout designed to meet her needs, was exclusively intended for her performances. The stage was equipped with a , curved LED video screen, costing million, which enabled Adele to connect more intimately with her audience. It set a Guinness World Record for the largest temporary outdoor LED video screen. The expansive stage space and 250-ton main stage equipment were installed within the largest temporary capacity ever constructed for an arena and stadium. The pyrotechnic system and the audio and lighting setups were customised according to the Adele Arena's specific characteristics. The stadium was surrounded by a vast theme park, Adele World, featuring food and beverage offerings, amusement rides, personal memorabilia on display, and an additional stage for opening acts and Late Night Karaoke. A typical Adele set list comprised twenty songs, plus an interlude.
The concert residency spanned 10 dates, comprising two weekly performances, from 2 to 31 August 2024. Although the venue's gigantism left some journalists perplexed, the event and Adele's performance were generally well received. Adele set a new total attendance record at , attracting more than 730,000 people. The Munich performances recorded the highest attendance for any concert residency outside Las Vegas over 10 consecutive dates. It also set a new Billboard Boxscore attendance record for a concert engagement. According to of , Adele earned about million. Audience spending generated more than half a billion euros for the Munich economy, and the residency increased tourism and had a positive economic impact on the region. Journalists highlighted the impact of this custom-built temporary venue on the "music business", with Adele setting "new standards for the international industry".
Background Adele's Live 2016, the tour supporting her successful third album 25, traversed multiple continents. During the tour, records for ticket sales and attendance were broken. 600,000 tickets were sold for eight concerts in Australia, and she performed to a record 200,000 people over two nights at Sydney's ANZ Stadium. On 28 June 2017, Adele expressed her uncertainty about future tours in a handwritten note in the programs for her concert series at London's Wembley Stadium. She had decided to bring her world tour to a close in her hometown. Adele set the Wembley Stadium attendance record with 98,000 people. It was "a stadium record for a UK music event", wrote BBC News. Due to issues with her vocal cords, the last two nights at Wembley Stadium were cancelled after 121 concerts performed for this album cycle.
In April 2019, a representative for Adele announced her separation from her husband, Simon Konecki. She filed a divorce petition in September of that year in Los Angeles Superior Court.
During her several-year hiatus, Adele reappeared in October 2020 by hosting the American comedy show Saturday Night Live. She made light-hearted comments about her recent weight loss and updated her fans on the status of her new album's production process. In the episode, she played a contestant in a Bachelor-themed parody sketch, singing excerpts from her songs.
Adele finalised her divorce from Konecki in March 2021. She gave her first concert in years, performing in an intimate setting at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles for the CBS prime-time special Adele One Night Only. Adele sang her latest single, "Easy on Me", and other songs from her impending comeback album and conversed with Oprah Winfrey.
Adele's fourth album, the first in six years, 30, was released on 19 November 2021. The album, which thematically centred on the collapse of her marriage, was created in the aftermath of her divorce and allowed her to explain this phase of her life to her son. 30 was "self-destruction", said Adele, "then self-reflection and then sort of self-redemption." She performed at the London Palladium for her ITV special An Audience with Adele before "a celebrity-heavy crowd". The album received great praise from music critics. On 30 November, she announced Weekends with Adele, a concert residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, scheduled to run from 21 January to 16 April 2022. 30 became the best-selling album of 2021.
Adele tearfully announced on her Instagram account on 20 January 2022 that she had postponed her entire Las Vegas residency. The sudden postponement was controversial; she justified it by citing "delivery delays and COVID" and later added that her "artistic needs" were "not being met". Weekends with Adele would eventually launch later that year.
Development Adele had been absent from Continental European concert stages since 2016 and had not planned to return. However, concert promoters and would challenge her. The project originated when , driven by an idea but without an execution strategy, approached Lucy Dickins, Adele's agent. He put forward a series of propositions for Adele to perform on an "open-air site" in Germany, but nothing concrete came to fruition.
Improvements to 's propositions were thereafter made, accompanied by the recommendation of a purpose-built stadium, illustrated by a sketch from , a production designer. To determine whether the idea would be imaginable in Munich, and first inquired with , head of the Munich Department of Labour and Economy and director of . , of Austrian origin, sought the assistance of his "friend and mentor", , for "production", as well as promotion. Adele's two sold-out concerts in July 2022 at Hyde Park, London, and her Las Vegas residency were intended to be her only full live performances to promote 30.
The upgraded offer was submitted to Dickins in 2023, and she examined it. "I knew questions would be asked, like, why Germany? Why Munich?" she remembered afterwards. The held in Munich was decisive, as was her evaluation of the urban infrastructure system supporting this event in a city geographically located in the heart of Central Europe. Persuaded, she presented the concept to her brother Jonathan, Adele's manager since 2006, who expressed interest in the project and would become "centrally" involved in the undertaking as with the Las Vegas residency.
Jonathan and Lucy Dickins invited them to Los Angeles, where they met Adele. They first suggested London and Paris to her, then Munich, without insisting. valorised the infrastructure of the () exhibition centre in conversation with Adele. Nevertheless, she asked him about their choice of Munich, and he argued that the city functions effectively during significant events and even in the case of high-density crowds, using as an illustration. She found these arguments "madly convincing", said . , also known as "" to English speakers, is located on the city's outskirts. Adele accepted the offer after seeing 's designs for a non-permanent stadium. stated that they had to "overcome a lot of hurdles and put a great deal of work into convincing her". She deemed the project "fabulous", however. later recalled visiting Adele in America in August 2023 and telling her, "You are the Queen of Music, we will build you your own stadium". Adele responded, "Let's do it!"
Matt Askem, Adele's creative director since 2016, worked closely with her; as a result, the project's progress accelerated in the autumn of 2023. The appraisals highlighted the project's value, which would require a significant financial investment. Live Nation then joined the project. It materialised thanks to the support of Live Nation's chief executive officer (CEO), Michael Rapino, and vice president (VP) of touring, . A senior British music industry official said, "somebody's put a lot of money on the table. Not only have they got Adele, but they have her as a European exclusive".
Meanwhile, had to carry out "enormous" trust-building work and conduct "countless conversations" at the exhibition centre for a year and a half in advance because the concerts of Andreas Gabalier, Helene Fischer, and Robbie Williams, which organised on the fairgrounds, received "negative feedback" during the summer of 2022. Although the concerts themselves were not subject to criticism, the suitability of 's open space as an area for live music remained questionable due to the ground being strewn with stones of different sizes. Furthermore, renting out the grounds for concerts has not been the core business of . The planning, safety and traffic concept raised critical observations. The security environment was complicated at the German edition of Rolling Loud 2023, which also took place at and was organised by Live Nation GmbH and Entertainment Group, as aggressive individuals used these stones as projectiles. Improvements had nevertheless been made to the organisational strategy for Rolling Loud. and , CEOs of , only belatedly learned that the request concerned Adele.
The pivotal moment occurred shortly after Christmas 2023. The Adele project was formally adopted, and members of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), a party on the Munich City Council, jubilantly praised their colleague . of Rolling Stone Germany later wrote: "Various bureaucratic hurdles would have been cleared aside with a sense of proportion." said that this political reaction denoted a "trend in the global live business", as Adele is part of the slogan " artists", comprising those who are capable of generating "mega-sales" during their tours and having a considerable economic impact on the cities that host them, through concert series in the same place.
In January 2024, Jack Malvern and Oliver Moody of The Times stated that the "custom-built" venue on the vast outdoor space at the exhibition centre would be the "world's largest pop-up stadium" and would "far exceed" the 44,000-capacity temporary stadium built for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. At this stage, and have been "courting" Adele for two years. On 31 January, the media announced that the performances at the "bespoke" Munich venue would be a concert residency, titled "Adele in Munich". Soon after, the press issued two stadium images showing several "Adele" in bright capital letters around the perimeter of the exterior . Journalists at Rolling Stone Germany found the stadium's layout reminiscent of a one-handed clock from an aerial perspective. This music venue was subsequently known as the "Adele Arena". Adele stated that her time in Munich would be a "wonderful" way to conclude this chapter of her life and career, with her concerts being "closer to home". Looking back on the two years spent developing the project, commented in February, "I had a vision that drove me forward".