Imagine Dragons Opens First Night at Rbc Amphitheatre
Imagine Dragons opened the first summer concert season at rbc amphitheatre on Thursday night, giving concertgoers the first look at the venue’s renamed entrance and revised setup. The former Budweiser Stage now greets fans with a blue-yellow-and-white archway over a blue carpet.
Dan Reynolds Starts With Enemy
Dan Reynolds began the show with Enemy and closed it an hour-and-40-minutes later with Radioactive. Between those bookends, the band — with guitarist-keyboardist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee and touring drummer Andrew Tolman — played the kind of tight, efficient set that fits a venue trying to sell itself as more than a summer stop.
Reynolds also told the crowd, "Hello Toronto! What a day to be alive!" The line fit the moment: this was the first concert season under the RBC Amphitheatre name, and the opening night was built as much around first impressions as around the set list.
Blue Carpet, New Menu
Six specialty cocktails and margarita flavours are now being served for $27 at a new tequila bar, while bacon and cheese hotdogs topped with Kraft Dinner cost $14. A new vintage photo booth from Simons and a more corporate-looking marquee sign round out the visible changes before the music even starts.
Rideshare or public transit is strongly suggested because parking is difficult at the Exhibition Place site, where access remains shaped by the broader redevelopment around the waterfront. Concertgoers arriving now are seeing the venue in transition, not as a finished product.
2027 to 2030 Buildout
RBC Amphitheatre is expected to close for renovations in fall 2027 and reopen in summer 2029, with full-year capabilities due by summer 2030. The plan calls for a new pedestrian bridge, a lookout deck with elevator access to the lawn, expanded summer capacity to 18,000, and winter capacity of approximately 9,000 seats.
Lawn seating will grow by 2,000 to 9,000, with the renovated venue open year-round as of 2030 and configured for seated areas plus an open-air lawn section from May to October. Thursday’s crowd saw the first phase of that shift: a venue trying to sell a bigger future while it is still drawing summer audiences the old-fashioned way.
