No Peter Kay, Cure or Pulp - has there been a worse time for Bristol gig-goers

With the completion of the YTL Arena at Filton still pencilled in for 2024 and the seemingly never-ending transformation of the former Colston Hall into The Beacon not expected until 2023 at least, has there ever been a worse time for Bristol gig-goers?

Every time a major artist announces a UK tour, it has now got to the point where Bristol will inevitably be missing from the list of tour dates. I don’t even look now. It’s 20 years since I saw Peter Kay live in Bristol and it will certainly be a long time before I hear the shouts of ‘garlic bread’ in the city again. We just don’t get the big stars in Bristol anymore.

Bands too big for the still-popular 02 Academy are now booking The Forum, a converted 1930s cinema a short walk from Bath railway and bus stations, which makes it especially convenient for people living in Bristol.

Forthcoming gigs in the diary at The Forum include Suede, Mogwai and Jack Whitehall, all of whom always played Bristol on tour previously. Yesterday, Katie Melua announced her tour next year will not be at Bristol, but The Forum instead.

The Forum is an excellent venue, too, so many bands may even decide to return there in the future despite the slightly larger Beacon launching.

Of course, Bristol has seen some large gigs over the past year thanks to shows at Ashton Gate - people will still be talking about Elton John’s two sell-out nights and the memorable show from Killers - and at the Harbourside amphitheatre, but these tend to me more summer events when the weather is more likely to be kinder to uncovered fans in the open air.

The only silver lining is that when YTL Arena finally opens, it should be up there with some of the UK’s biggest indoor venues. With a proposed capacity of 17,000, it will be smaller than Manchester Arena (21,000) and Arena Birmingham (16,000) but larger than arenas in Leeds, Liverpool and Cardiff Motorpoint, which has space for 7,500 at standing gigs or 5,000 for fully seated events.

But even at 17,000, Bristol will never attract the biggest bands in the world so anybody expecting to see the likes of Coldplay, Blur or Ed Sheeran return to the city will have a very long wait.

And it’s not just gigs. When the shortlist for potential grounds for the Euros 2028 was revealed this week, Bristol didn’t get a sniff. Ashton Gate is too small and so the closest grounds in the running are, again, Cardiff, or Aston Villa’s ground if you fancy a Midlands trip.

For a city the size of Bristol, and with such a rich cultural and sporting history, it’s frustrating, annoying and downright embarrassing that we are missing out on so many big tours and events.

Why should we have to travel great distances and book expensive overnight hotels just to see our favourite artists who can’t perform in a city that hasn’t got its act together like the rest of the UK?