Afterpay Arena

Afterpay Arena is a 21,000-seat, fully enclosed venue in Sydney Olympic Park, built for the Sydney 2000 Games and now calibrated for arena-scale concerts. Its distinguishing feature in 2026 is a fresh interior overhaul: the Grand Foyer carries three suspended transparent holographic LED screens, each seven metres wide, before fans reach the bowl. For a big pop, hip-hop, electronic or R&B tour, this is Sydney’s high-capacity indoor option with the infrastructure to shift between music and sport.

Built for the Games, renamed for the present

The building began as Sydney SuperDome, a AU$200 million project designed and constructed by Abigroup with Obayashi Corporation under a build-own-operate-transfer contract. NSW Premier Bob Carr officially opened it in November 1999 with a gala performance by Luciano Pavarotti; the following year, artistic gymnastics, trampoline, basketball finals and wheelchair basketball filled the venue during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Its early business story carried some turbulence. Millennium Partnership entered receivership in 2004, and a PBL subsidiary agreed to buy the venue’s management rights, subject to Sydney Olympic Park Authority approval. Twenty-two years later, the arena changed names again: after a decade as Qudos Bank Arena, it officially launched as Afterpay Arena on July 23, 2026, under a five-year naming-rights partnership and a venue-wide refurbishment.

The room today

Programming is broad by design: major touring pop, indie, hip-hop, R&B and electronic shows share the schedule with jazz, folk and Latin bills, plus sport, comedy and family presentations. Concert layouts can place general-admission standing or reserved seating on the flat lower-ground floor, with seating on the ground-level main concourse and Level 3 upper concourse. Arrive early if the foyer is part of the plan: two redesigned hospitality spaces include a casual lower bar and a more polished upper lounge, while the expanded payment system runs across bars, concessions and merchandise outlets.