'I’m b****y fuming': Outrage after Co-op Live tickets cancelled 'less than an hour' before event started

Ticket holders for a show at Manchester's huge new arena have spoken of their outrage after being turned away 'less than an hour’ before it started.

Co-op Live was ready to welcome 11,000 fans to its first-ever show starring Rick Astley this evening - but bosses were forced to reduce its capacity last minute.

Attendees say they received emails shortly before the show was due to start saying their tickets had been cancelled so spaces at the arena can be tested properly.

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Visitors to the new £365m venue - located next to the Etihad Stadium - were set to be a mixture of paying fans, press, VIPs and staff who helped build the new venue. Some fans were able to get tickets for just £5 for the show.

The KTNA will be first to open the show followed by Manchester's Everything Everything before Rick Astley takes to the stage as a headline act. The test show comes before huge acts including Peter Kay, Barry Manilow, The Killers, Eagles, Liam Gallagher, Olivia Rodrigo and Take That perform in the weeks ahead.

But now some attendees have been told their tickets have been cancelled just an hour before the event. One VIP guest, who had been invited to attend received the email just as they were preparing to leave at 5pm for the arena, said: “How disgusting to be uninvited an hour before the show? I’m bloody fuming.”

Another added: "The free concert tonight for all the staff that built the arena has been cancelled. In other words the so-called owners couldn’t care less about the people that built it. As we all started to arrive we got emails telling us it’s cancelled."

Byron Edwards took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to say: “Invitational tickets