One of the loudest things coming out of Rogers Stadium this past summer may have been the City of Toronto’s 311 phone line, as the number of noise complaints was up by more than 40 per cent from 2025. In a statement provided to CTV News, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto confirmed that there were 272 noise complaints about the venue between May and September. This is roughly 41 per cent higher than the number of noise complaints (192) received during the stadium’s inaugural season in 2025. The stadium installed vinyl cladding ahead of all the concerts this year to dampen the sound amid resident complaints. But Coun. James Pasternak told CTV News Toronto this only goes so far. “It is quite good when it comes to acoustic or a regular guitar, but when it’s a heavy bass, it doesn’t work as well,” Pasternak said in an interview on Friday. While there were six more concerts held at the open-air venue in 2026, the city noted that 53 new people called about the noise for the first time. It said that a total of 214 people ultimately logged complaints with 311. The performance held on Aug. 12 yielded the highest number of noise complaints, with around 60 calls. Chris Brown and Usher played the second night of their co-headlined “The R&B Tour” that evening. Bruno Mars’s first concert at the stadium this past May drew around 50 complaints. “Both occurred during weather conditions (fog, high humidity, rain) that allowed sound to travel greater distances,” Jas Baweja, a senior communications advisor at the City of Toronto, wrote in an email. Rogers Stadium opened for the first time in June, 2025 and can accommodate 50,000 people. The venue is temporary and will eventually be replaced by a mixed-use development planned for the former Downsview Airport Lands. But in the meantime, residents in the area have taken issue with the noise from the venue and the traffic it has generated. Suzy Martins, who lives in a condo near Sheppard Avenue West and Wilson Heights Boulevard, said the music that comes out of Rogers Stadium sounds completely cacophonous. “In my home, I don’t hear lovely music, I hear the ‘bang, bang, bang,’” Martins explained. “It’s like having a kid at home playing pots and pans.” Martins, who lives in a five-storey building, says the bass can also vibrate throughout her home, adding that she’s able to feel it in her windows. Anna Garbin, who lives in the same building as Martins, told CTV News Toronto that she has had a similar experience dealing with the noise. “At one point last year, without her hearing aids (and) with the windows closed, (my late mother) said, ‘Is there an earthquake?’,” she said. While Garbin and Martins know when there will be concerts and when to expect noise, they said the sound checks for those concerts often catch them off guard. “It could be any time the day before,” Garbin said. She said the sound check for the Foo Fighters this past August was particularly egregious, as it lasted from 1 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. “There’s no controlling these people. It’s the day before, all day, it’s the night of, and then the aftermath,” she said. The aftermath being the “sea of red lights” from all the vehicles leaving from the arena, and the thousands of people that walk throughout the neighbourhood later at night to return home. “Living in the area with the Rogers (Stadium), you really have to rechange your life,” Martins said. “You have to take into account when the concerts are happening and people are coming and leaving, because Sheppard becomes backed up, bumper-to-bumper.” In their commitment to being “good neighbours” to community members, a Live Nation Canada spokesperson said they’ve put in “significant effort” to ensure locals know how and where to raise concerns about the venue. “City of Toronto Municipal Licensing Officers are on-site each show to monitor noise, and we conduct post-event debriefs after every concert with the city as well as our other partners,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “All of our shows this summer have been under permitted levels allowed by the city.” Next concert season City council approved a motion in June to start work with Live Nation to secure a third-party acoustics engineer firm or sound expert they both agreed upon, in order to find any improvements or acoustical enhancements that can be made to soften the sound levels in neighbouring communities. Pasternak confirmed a consultant has been hired to conduct the acoustics study. The violent storm that pelted Toronto in September tore through the northern stands at Rogers Stadium, and with it, the cladding that had been installed for the 2026 season. “The question will be what happens with this cladding as they rebuild the north stands,” Pasternak said. “We do have some time, but there’s a lot of work to do, and we’re expecting creative ideas… We better have them soon because we want them incorporated as repairs take place.” Live Nation Canada said in an update on Thursday that repair work has started at Rogers Stadium, adding that they will be working closely with the city to ensure work is completed safely, efficiently, and carried out in accordance with local requirements, like applicable noise bylaws. “We are pleased to see clean up efforts continuing with ample time to complete the necessary work ahead of the stadium’s planned return in 2027,” officials wrote. So far, there five performances scheduled to take stage at Rogers Stadium next year. Harry Styles is slated to play four concerts, starting May 7, and Slipknot is expected to play on July 23. Garbins and Martins aren’t hopeful that change will come for then. “At this point, to be honest, I’m just sort of like, I’ll prepare for it when the time comes. What else can I do?” Martins said.
