During a captivating live performance at the Rogers Centre on Monday night, The Weeknd paused to address his hometown crowd with a nostalgic petition proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Performing his second After Hours Til Dawn show in Toronto, the Scarborough native and \u201cStarboy\u201d suggested the stadium\u2019s name be changed back to its original and former title \u2013 the SkyDome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gotta call Mr. Rogers or whoever owns this place. We gotta call this b**ch the Skydome again,\u201d he said during his set.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you agree with me, Toronto, or what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Concert-goers responded with loud cheers, offering their agreement with The Weeknd\u2019s bold and nostalgic proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAlright, those are all official petition signatures,\u201d he replied.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s 40,000 signatures right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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During the first night of his After Hours Til Dawn show run in Toronto on Sunday, the performer took time to reminisce about the stadium, reflecting on his journey from city boy to \u201cStarboy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to take in this moment right now. This has been a dream for a very long time, I used to come watch Blue Jays games here, it\u2019s crazy. Who knew a kid from Scarborough could do this, man, thank you guys so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many Torontonians, the SkyDome is more than just a name \u2013 it is a symbol of the city\u2019s identity. Opened in 1989, the venue was a marvel of modern architecture and technology, which featured the world\u2019s first fully retractable roof.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Feb. 2, 2005, the venue\u2019s name was changed to Rogers Centre after the telecommunications company bought the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The building has remained largely the same since it first opened in the 1980s, but a multi-year, phasic, $400 million private renovation that began in 2022 transformed the venue from a multi-purpose stadium into a dedicated ballpark.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since then, the Rogers Centre has seen additional, smaller-scale changes, including widened concourses, updated suites, improved lighting, and new technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Now Toronto took to the streets to see what locals\u00a0 thought of the Scarborough native\u2019s proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds nice. When things get renamed to these corporate names, it takes a little bit of the character away from it. SkyDome has this history of these memories associated with that word, and then you put Rogers in there. It\u2019s like, what\u2019s Rogers? That\u2019s just like my cellphone company,\u201d Alan told Now Toronto on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I think SkyDome is a cuter name. So, sure. I like the SkyDome better, but that\u2019s purely out of it sounding nicer,\u201d Ava said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m down. To be honest, I didn\u2019t even know it was the Rogers Centre until way later. The SkyDome is a sick name. I\u2019m for the Skydome,\u201d Eva said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others expressed a need to move forward, while others shared their lack of familiarity with the name change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep moving it forward. Come up with a different name or something,\u201d Julez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I was here for that,\u201d Angel said, not knowing the SkyDome reference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While some agree with The Weeknd\u2019s sentiment, they also said they would not support using taxpayer money to revert the stadium to its original name, noting that the additional cost would not be justified.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a captivating live performance at the Rogers Centre on Monday night, The Weeknd paused to address his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,25630,75,24090,24091],"class_list":["post-33815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-concerts-toronto","tag-entertainment","tag-rogers-centre","tag-the-weeknd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}