When Ariana Grande takes the stage on June 6, now with two “Wicked” films under her belt, it will mark the Grammy winner’s first stadium show since 2019. Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” tour is gearing up to be the defining musical event of the summer, with an entire cottage industry dedicated to predicting the set list. A spectacle worthy of legendary settings like LA’s Staples Center (aka the Crypto.com Arena), and London’s the O2.
But her debut performance won’t be at any of those storied venues. Instead, Grande chose to make her long-awaited return with three shows at the 19,200-capacity Oakland Arena, a stadium some considered abandoned and left for dead, but which has found new life as a pop music mecca.
Despite taking place in an aging stadium spurned by both the Warriors and the Valkyries, Grande’s three shows sold out instantaneously, with tickets currently fetching well over $1,000 on secondary markets.
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Grande isn’t the only Disney-star-turned-pop-sensation booked for the arena. Olivia Rodrigo, the singer-songwriter who tied a Grande chart record in April, recently announced a stadium tour with dates in New York, Paris, Milan and … Oakland. The “Driver’s License” singer is booked for two sold-out Oakland Arena shows in mid-December.
Ariana Grande attends the 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton on Jan. 11, 2026, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
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Olivia Rodrigo at the Disney Advertising Upfront, a showcase event that brings together all the content corners of the Walt Disney Co. on one stage. On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at North Javits in New York City.
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“Demand for both of them has been through the roof,” said the vice president of booking at Oakland Arena, Gretchen Claffey.
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And it’s not just pop stars who will be making the pilgrimage to East Oakland. Throughout 2026, Oakland Arena expects to play host to some of the bigger names in country (Kacey Musgraves and Billy Strings), Latin music (Rosalia), Rap (J. Cole) and K-pop (Aespa and Katseye).
The stellar lineup comes after Oakland Arena and neighboring Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum were abandoned by three different major league teams in five years. Oracle dropped its naming rights deal when the Warriors left, depriving the stadium of its “Roaracle” nickname. Many thought these departures would be a death blow for the complex. The neighborhood around the arena has seen one of the steepest economic declines of any ZIP code in the Bay Area. It was assumed the area would be razed and turned into condos by now.
San Francisco’s Chase Center, where the Warriors fled to in 2019, has a strong lineup for the rest of 2026 as well. The state-of-the-art 18,000-seat stadium expects to feature shows by Florence and the Machine, Doja Cat, Weezer and Daniel Caesar. But it’s hard to argue any of those names is as big as Grande or Rodrigo.
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So how did Oakland Arena go from life support to outpacing its replacement?
Oracle Arena, home of the 2015 NBA champion Golden State Warriors in Oakland, Calif.
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A “Strength in Numbers” banner is unveiled late in the fourth quarter, before the Golden State Warriors go on to beat the New Orleans Pelicans 123-101 in Game 1 of the second-round playoffs of the Western Conference finals at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on April 28, 2018.
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The fact that no major league team currently plays at Oakland Arena is actually a boon when it comes to booking artists.
“It helps to not have a tenant for concert scheduling purposes. We have more dates to work with. We can sometimes do load-in or rehearsal days, which can be helpful to artists’ teams,” said Claffey.
Oakland Arena has also made renovations with musical artists in mind. Claffey said it’s updated the backstage area for performers and touring personnel and added murals in the front of house to highlight historic performances at the venue.
Along with playing host to multiple Warriors championship seasons, the venue has featured shows by the likes of the Rolling Stones (five times), Elvis Presley (just once in 1970), Tina Turner (twice) and the Grateful Dead — who played a record 66 shows between the Oakland Arena and Coliseum.
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New Year’s atmosphere as the Grateful Dead perform at Oakland Coliseum Arena on Dec. 31, 1991, in Oakland, Calif.
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Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones brought their “No Security” tour to the Oakland Arena Jan. 25, 1999.
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Parking lot atmosphere as the Grateful Dead perform at Oakland Coliseum Arena on Dec. 17, 1993, in Oakland, Calif.
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The arena also offers a relatively convenient experience for fans, something artists need to take into account amid “blue dot fever”—- the epidemic of concert cancellations due to poor ticket sales.
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“We’re so centrally located. We have the BART station. There’s the Amtrak station. We’re connected to the Oakland airport. We have tons of parking spaces. It’s just an extremely easy venue for people to access, which I think really helps a lot in people’s decision making process about buying tickets,” said Claffey.
This stands in stark contrast to many of the Bay Area’s other biggest concert venues. Chase Center and Oracle Park (capacity 42,300) are not close to BART and have limited parking, Levi’s Stadium is notoriously difficult to get to, and hell hath no fury like the Shoreline Amphitheatre parking lot.
When A-list performers come to Oakland, the entire city benefits.
Keyshia Cole performs at Oakland Arena on July 31, 2025, in Oakland, Calif.
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Burna Boy performs onstage at Oakland Arena on Nov. 18, 2025, in Oakland, Calif.
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“Having assets like the Oakland Arena & Coliseum in The Town, is very important to bringing visitors to Oakland,” wrote the president and CEO of Visit Oakland, Peter Gamez, in an email to SFGATE.
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“In the past when global artists and events come to Oakland, we see an increase in hotel occupancy and our local businesses benefit from those visitors enjoying our Oakland experiences,” Gamez continued.
For the Ariana Grande shows, Visit Oakland is running a promotional giveaway in which the winner could take home two free concert tickets, airfare and a two-night stay at the Claremont Resort.
As stacked as the Arena’s lineup already is, Claffey teased that more was still to come.
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“We’ve got a few still left to announce in 2026 that are pretty big that we’re very excited about,” Claffey said.
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“Nothing confirmed that or that we can share yet, but a lot of great conversations,” Claffey said. “And we’re expecting 2027 to be just as big as 2026.”