O2 tops bills as world's favourite pop venue

LONDON'S O2 arena has broken records to become the world's most popular music arena for the second year in a row.

Official figures released by industry publication Pollstar show the Greenwich venue sold nearly two million tickets last year.

Pollstar says the 1,806, 447 total is the highest figure since it started monitoring annual ticket sales in 2000. The figure for the 20,000-seat arena inside the former Millennium Dome is attributable to sell-out shows by Kylie Minogue, the Eagles, Kanye West, Kings of Leon, Stevie Wonder, the Spice Girls and Sir Elton John.

The world's next most-visited arena last year was New York's Madison Square Gardens where there were more than 500,000 ticket sales than the O2.

But it was bad news for Wembley Arena which has struggled to compete since its east London rival opened for business in 2007. The 12,500-capacity venue - once London's most popular - was listed 38th in the world.

Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of Pollstar said: "This is certainly the highest year-end tickets sales we have had since our records began in 2000. The O2 has made a massive impact on the global concert business."

Arena chiefs hope that another flurry of big name acts this year including Britney Spears, Tina Turner, The Killers, Beyoncé, Pink, AC/DC, and Bob Dylan will help the venue break the two million mark.

Venue Ticket sales

1. O2 arena, London - 1,806, 447

2. Madison Square Gardens, New York - 1,161,035

3. Manchester Evening News Arena, Manchester - 1,157,892

4. Sportpaleis Antwerpen Merksem, Belgium - 889,137

5. Air Canada Centre, Toronto - 723,469

Source: Pollstar