Live Nation cancelled AC/DC’s Sept. 16 concert at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium on Wednesday evening after engineers determined that sections of the venue damaged in last week’s storm will have to be removed and rebuilt, the stadium said in a statement posted to social media.
The announcement came at 6:34 p.m. EDT, a week after a thunderstorm tore through Toronto on Sept. 2 and brought down part of the 50,000-seat venue’s north grandstand, according to CP24, which first reported the cancellation. The show was to be the final event of the stadium’s second summer season, and no makeup date was announced.
“The safety of fans, artists, crew and venue staff remains our highest priority. Every effort was made to find potential solutions for the show to move forward in Toronto, but unfortunately we were unable to find an alternative venue that could accommodate everyone,” the statement said.
Fans who bought tickets through Ticketmaster will be refunded automatically to their original method of payment and need take no action, the stadium said. Those holding resale tickets were told to contact their point of sale for refund information.
The decision followed what the stadium described as a thorough assessment carried out with the City of Toronto. “Last Wednesday’s storm was an exceptionally severe and significant weather event, and in the days since, engineers have conducted a thorough assessment of the venue in coordination with the City of Toronto. That work has determined that sections of the venue impacted by the storm will need to be removed and rebuilt,” the statement read. It added that the venue operates under extensive operational oversight and a rigorous safety inspection process, and that engineers have worked with the city from the beginning of the project.
Wayne Zronik, president of business operations at Live Nation Canada, said the damage left the stadium unable to host fans. “Cancelling a concert is never a decision we want to make, and we know how disappointing this will be for all of us who have been looking forward to seeing AC/DC close out our summer season. Safety has to come first,” Zronik said. He said the affected sections would be removed and rebuilt “to ensure it is ready to welcome fans next summer,” and that the work would be completed carefully, safely and responsibly.
Kevin Mahoney, the stadium’s on-site meteorologist, called the storm an extraordinary weather event. “A suspected microburst in the area with extreme winds and heavy rainfall made it a 100-year storm for Toronto,” he wrote, adding that forensic meteorological analysis is ongoing. The same storm left a repair bill across the city that most home insurance policies will not cover.
The cancellation caps a week in which the venue’s status was in open question. On Sept. 4 the City of Toronto issued an order to remedy an unsafe building, requiring Live Nation to submit an engineering report by Tuesday identifying the damage, the remedial measures needed and a schedule for the work, CBC News reported. City officials confirmed this week that they had received the report but did not release its findings, saying only that they would continue working with the stadium’s owner throughout the process. No injuries were reported in the storm.
Rogers Stadium is not a permanent building. Live Nation announced it in September 2024 as a purpose-built seasonal outdoor concert venue on the former Downsview Airport lands, and it was completed in about nine months and opened June 29, 2025 with a capacity of 50,000. It was designed with an intended lifetime of roughly five years, after which it is to be demolished. It should not be confused with Rogers Centre, the downtown domed stadium formerly known as SkyDome.
Neither Live Nation nor the stadium said what the repairs will cost, how long they will take, whether insurance will cover them, or whether the storm damage changes the venue’s planned lifespan. The statement said only that the venue is expected to reopen next summer.
Reporting from CP24 / CTV News (Joanna Lavoie), with additional reporting from CBC News, Global News and Billboard Canada.
