Every venue has that magic run of shows that becomes legendary. For Tacoma Dome it came in 2002 when Paul McCartney played, followed by The Rolling Stones, Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, Kid Rock, Korn and Tom Petty.
“It was an amazing three weeks here,” recalled John McClees, who has been the events manager at Tacoma Dome for 19 years.
“It all started with Paul McCartney in the middle of October,” he said. “Then the Stones showed up a few weeks later and it was six shows in 15 days.”
Those shows drew massive crowds and did huge numbers.
“It was something we prepared for two to three months in advance — the parking, the traffic flow — but all the ahead-of-time preparations in the world never get you ready for something like that,” McClees admitted.
“Loading in and out the shows; taking care of the artists; getting people to the building, out of their cars and in to enjoy the show and then out back to their cars, is difficult under normal circumstances,” he said. “In this case, with so many high-profile shows all slammed into a short period of time, it was a miracle that we pulled it off without any major hitches.”
Adding to the pressure in that period was notoriously problematic Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose.
“The Guns N’ Roses tour was supposed to start in Vancouver (British Columbia) a week before they were to play the dome,” McClees said. “But Axl never made it to the Vancouver show. We were all concerned that Axl would be a no-show for our show, so we got a police escort to get him to the venue. It cost us money, it was nerve-wracking, but we got Axl to the dome and he did the show.”
Garth Brooks played five shows in three days at Tacoma Dome. (Darrell Westmoreland)
Garth Brooks provided another memorable run. “We did five shows in three days,” McClees said. “We averaged over 20,000 fans per show; 100,000 total over the three days. That’s a lot of fans to move in and out of a venue.”
he city added a “Garth Train” that went from Seattle straight down to Tacoma Dome. “That was big help,” McClees said. “They hadn’t done that in nearly a decade.”