Rotterdam Ahoy
On 18 March 2020, the European Broadcasting Union cancelled the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in the competition's history. The host venue, Rotterdam Ahoy, had spent months preparing - the lighting rigs, the green room, the staging for 41 nations. Within weeks the same building was clearing its main arena for hospital beds and medical equipment, ready to receive Covid patients as a field hospital. Fourteen months later, in May 2021, those same floors were under the Eurovision stage again, and Måneskin won the contest in front of a reduced live audience and one of the largest television viewerships in years. Few venues have pivoted that hard, that fast, in either direction.
A Building Shaped Like a Ship
The name itself is a Rotterdam joke. 'Ahoy' is what sailors shout, and in 1950 the city held an exposition titled Rotterdam Ahoy! to mark the near-completion of postwar reconstruction - the harbour had been pounded by German bombing and was being rebuilt almost from scratch. A temporary exhibition hall was built for the occasion on the site of what is today the Erasmus MC hospital. The current complex is descended from that hall, but at a vastly different scale, and at a different location south of the river Maas. When the modern Sportpaleis was designed in the late 1960s, the architects took the city's maritime DNA literally: the building was laid out like a ship, hull-curved and prow-like, on the inland edge of a city that has never stopped thinking of itself as a port.
Velodrome to Arena
The Sportpaleis opened on 15 January 1971, in the presence of Prince Claus, during a six-day track cycling race. That makes sense, because the building was originally designed as an indoor velodrome - a banked oval track for the kind of marathon cycling events that drew huge crowds in postwar Europe. The cycling track was dismantled in 1988 when demand for cycling had faded and demand for concerts and other shows had surged. The arena's capacity climbed past 15,000 with new grandstands installed in 2010-2011, and a 1,000-square-metre LED facade was bolted to the exterior by the Dutch lighting company Signify. By 2019 it could hold 16,426. A removable cycling track returned in 2005 for the revived Six Days of Rotterdam, neatly closing a loop, but the cycling no longer defines the place.
Door Duncan
In 2019 Duncan Laurence, born in nearby Spijkenisse, won Eurovision for the Netherlands with 'Arcade' - the country's first victory in the adult contest since 1975. The win brought the next year's contest to Rotterdam by tradition, and Ahoy renamed its artists' entrance 'Door Duncan' in 2020 to mark the occasion. Then the pandemic intervened, the cancellation came, and the field hospital arrived. When Eurovision 2021 finally took place at Ahoy on 18, 20 and 22 May, the renamed door was the one through which dozens of competing acts walked toward the stage. The building has hosted the Junior Eurovision Song Contest as well - 2007 - which makes it the second venue in history to host both the senior and junior editions of Europe's most-watched annual television event, after the Palace of Sports in Kyiv.
The Long List of Champions
Strip away the music and the venue still has a sporting record few arenas can match. Rotterdam Open tennis comes back every year, and the Six Days of Rotterdam track cycling event returned with that removable banking. Premier League Darts has used the building since 2016. The bigger championships read almost like a directory: the 1973 European Athletics Indoor Championships, the 1973 Ice Hockey World Championships, world artistic gymnastics in 1987 and 2010, world judo in 2009, world table tennis in 2011, UCI BMX in 2014, two European volleyball championships, world short track speed skating in 2017, FIVB women's volleyball worlds in 2022, world women's handball in 2025. UFC came twice in 2016 and 2017. Mariah Carey, Beyoncé (seven appearances between 2002 and 2009, first with Destiny's Child and then solo), My Chemical Romance on their 2022 Reunion Tour. The Dutch crooner Lee Towers holds the venue's all-time record with 51 concerts.
Solar Roof, New Wing
The complex keeps growing. In April 2021 5,200 solar panels were activated on the roof, capable of supplying large events with sustainable energy 195 days a year. In late 2020, the new Rotterdam Ahoy Convention Centre and the RTM Stage opened alongside the original arena - a 7,000-capacity concert hall, a 2,750-seat auditorium expandable to 4,000, and 35,000 square metres of additional floor space, with 35 break-out rooms layered across the second and third floors. A new parking garage and a Pathé cinema are under construction or already complete around the forecourt. Ahoy began as a temporary hall to celebrate Rotterdam's recovery from one catastrophe. Seventy years later, it celebrated its recovery from another by handing the stage to Europe's pop singers.
From the Cockpit
Ahoy sits south of the Maas river in the Zuid district of Rotterdam, just inland of the Zuidplein metro station and shopping centre. From the air, look for the curved hull-shaped roof and the great LED facade catching sunlight. The Erasmus bridge cuts north toward the city centre across the broad brown water of the Nieuwe Maas. Coordinates 51.88°N, 4.49°E. Best viewed at 2,000-4,000 feet. Nearest airport: Rotterdam The Hague (EHRD), 8 km northwest.
From the Air
Located at 51.882778°N, 4.488056°E in Rotterdam-Zuid, just south of the Maas river. Distinctive curved 'ship-shaped' roof with a large LED facade. Recommended viewing altitude 2,000-4,000 feet. Visual landmarks: the Erasmus bridge to the north, the Maas river, Zuidplein metro station immediately adjacent. Nearest airports: Rotterdam The Hague (EHRD) 8 km NW; Amsterdam Schiphol (EHAM) 65 km N. North Sea climate - expect frequent low cloud and good wind visibility.