What Is It Like to See a Concert at Motorpoint Arena Nottingham?
The only major English arena that sits on top of a working Olympic ice rink. The Nottingham Panthers play home hockey on the pad beneath the floor, and on show nights it's a standing pit or flat seated blocks.
What to Know Before You Go
- 1The tram drops you at the door
The NET tram's Lace Market stop is a 5-minute walk from the entrance, with trams roughly every 7 minutes until around midnight. It is the easiest way in and out.
- 2There is no on-site parking
None at all. Use a city-centre car park like Trinity Square, Fletcher Gate, Stoney Street or Broadmarsh, roughly a 10-minute walk (see [Getting There](#getting-there)).
- 3Nottingham station is a 10-minute walk
Handy if you are travelling in by train, and a short taxi if you would rather not walk.
- 4The floor is flat, so a floor seat is a gamble
Seated floor Blocks A, B and C are not raked. Front rows of Block B are the best seats in the house, but once you are back a few rows your view depends on who stands in front of you.
- 5Want a guaranteed view, pick a raked tier
Lower-tier centre blocks 3 to 6 give the cleanest sightline because they actually rake.
- 6Check your seat if it is Row L or a low letter
Small walls clip the view on specific tiered seats, and they are not always sold as restricted.
- 7Bag limit is strict for big shows
Only handbags and small bags no larger than 35cm x 40cm x 19cm get in for major events. No outside food or drink; it comes out of your bag at the search.
- 8It is a busy touring room
Bills land here constantly, from [J. Cole](/artists/j-cole) and pop tours to metal and comedy, so the crowd and the setup change a lot night to night.
- 9Bring a card
Expect to pay by card at the bars, and expect arena prices; one fan clocked three Stellas and three small waters at about £18.
At a Glance
- Capacity
- 10,000 (about 9,159 fully seated)
- Venue Type
- Arena
- Year Opened
- 2000
- Seating
- Mixed (standing floor or flat floor seats, plus tiered bowl)
- Climate
- Indoor; floor sits over the ice pad and can run cool
- Parking
- No on-site; city-centre car parks (Trinity Square, Broadmarsh, NCP)
- Transit
- NET tram, Lace Market stop (5 min walk); Nottingham Station (10 min walk)
Small for an arena, against the 68 arenas we have documented.
What It's Actually Like
A Concert Room Bolted On Top of an Ice Rink
This is the entertainment half of the National Ice Centre, and the concert floor is literally laid over the Olympic-size ice pad the Nottingham Panthers use for home hockey. It shapes the whole experience. On the biggest nights it is the largest indoor venue in the East Midlands, the regional step up from an independent club like Rock City. Some fans notice the floor running cool compared with a normal arena, which makes sense given what is under it, so a layer is not a bad idea even for a packed show.
The Acoustics Divide Opinion
Acoustics here are a genuine, long-running fan argument rather than a settled fact. One camp calls the sound hollow and thin, with reviews titled bluntly along the lines of the sound being awful. The other camp walks out happy, and a 2023 Stereophonics crowd rated the sound as great. It is a boxy multipurpose ice arena, and rooms like this tend to reward central positions and punish the far corners, which fits the split. Where you sit matters more than usual.
“It's so hollow the sound just disappears.”
Painless to Get Into
For a room this size, the entry experience gets consistent praise. Fans describe the staff as helpful and the doors as painless, and the crowd on a big night is a regional East Midlands draw rather than a big-city audience. It helps that the arena sits right in the middle of Nottingham's Lace Market rather than out by a ring road, so you're walking into a live city centre, not a retail park. That city-centre setting is also what makes leaving so easy (see Getting There).
The Curtain Trick
For smaller shows the room does not just feel empty, it gets physically shrunk. A draping system installed in 2011 curtains the arena down to roughly 4,000, so the same building can host a genuine arena headliner one week and an intimate curtained show the next. Check which configuration your show is in, because it changes where the stage is and how far back the seating runs.
Section-by-Section Guide
Standing Floor (GA)
For standing shows the floor is a single flat general-admission pit, and you reach it down steep steps from the concourse rather than walking straight on. The stage sits at one end of the room, opposite tiered block 10, so the floor runs long rather than wide, and the back of the pit is a real distance from the stage. Because there is no rake, height clearance is everything down here; shorter fans lose the stage once the pit fills in. If the front rail matters to you, arrive early, because there is only one flat floor and everyone wants the same few metres.
Floor Seating (Blocks A, B, C)
When the floor is set with seats it stays flat and un-raked, and this is the part of the arena fans most often get wrong. The front rows of Block B, dead centre, are the best seats in the building for an end-stage show, with Blocks A and C either side. The floor is a single flat, un-raked level, so past the first few rows your view depends entirely on who sits or stands in front of you, and a handful of tiered seats sit behind small walls. Row A is the real trap: sitting in the very front floor row you are level with the whole crowd, and reviewers report seeing nothing but the backs of the people ahead. A floor ticket is not automatically the best ticket here.
Lower Tier (Centre Blocks 3-6)
The tiered lower bowl is the safe choice precisely because it is raked, unlike the floor. Lower-tier centre blocks 3 to 6 give the best mix of proximity and a guaranteed clean sightline, and this is where to book if you want to be certain you can see rather than gamble on a flat floor. Sound tends to be more balanced in the centre of the bowl than out at the extremes.
Restricted-View Seats to Avoid
A specific set of tiered seats sit behind small walls that clip the view, and they are not always priced as restricted. The known ones are Row L in every even-numbered block, plus individual seats in Block 5 Row F, Block 9 Row F, Block 14 Row E and Block 16 Row E. If your seat lands on any of those, check it on a seat-view site before the show so you are not surprised.
Upper Tier (Rows P-V)
The highest tiered rows, around P to V, are a long climb up many steps and sit high and far from the stage. The view is unobstructed up there, but the venue's own guidance flags these rows as unsuitable for anyone with vertigo or mobility concerns. They are the cheap, remote end of the bowl: fine if you just want in the room, less so if the climb is a problem.
Accessibility Seating
Accessible positions are documented in the venue's access guide, and the lower tier and floor are the accessible-friendly zones. The part of the bowl to steer clear of for limited mobility is the upper tier, where Rows P to V involve many steps. Sort accessible seating through the venue's access team rather than a general sale.
Going to a Show?
Heading to Motorpoint Arena Nottingham? Add the show to Concerts Remembered before you go and it's on your phone whether or not you have signal inside. Afterward you'll have the setlist, your seat, and what you thought of it.
Motorpoint Arena Nottingham · what fans report
Everything fans report about Motorpoint Arena Nottingham is normal for an arena
Measured against 66 arenas we have documented. Every fault below is carried by most arenas, so none of them single this room out.
Normal for an arena
- Sightlines go when it fills71% of arenas
The floor is a single flat, un-raked level, so past the first few rows your view depends entirely on who sits or stands in front of you, and a handful of tiered seats sit behind small walls.
Common for arenas, not reported here
- Getting out is punishing61% of arenas
- Sound falls apart at the back47% of arenas
Concerts Remembered Venue Index · 66 arenas tagged against a closed seven-category taxonomy · every row cites this guide · reviewed September 2026
Getting There
Tram (NET, Lace Market Stop)
The NET tram is the best way to the arena. The Lace Market stop is a 5-minute walk from the doors, and trams run roughly every 7 minutes until around midnight, fed by Park & Ride sites on the edge of the city. For most fans it beats driving outright, and you don't have to think about a car park at all.
Train (Nottingham Station)
Nottingham railway station is about a 10-minute walk from the arena, or a short taxi if you'd rather not walk. It's a straightforward city-centre route, which makes an out-of-town train trip painless compared with arenas stranded on ring roads.
Driving
There's no on-site parking. You're picking a city-centre car park about a 10-minute walk away: Trinity Square, Fletcher Gate, Stoney Street and Broadmarsh are the usual choices, with an NCP arena partner car park among them. Because these are ordinary city-centre car parks rather than a dedicated arena lot, there's no single lot that traps you post-show, but there's also no park-and-walk-straight-in convenience. Prices are standard city-centre evening rates and vary by car park.
Getting Out
The tram is the fast exit. Head to the Lace Market stop and you're on board within minutes, or walk the 10 minutes to Nottingham station for onward trains. Because the arena sits in the city centre rather than out by a motorway, leaving isn't the ordeal it is at most arenas.
Food, Drink, and Merch
The Reality
Concessions are standard arena fare with standard arena prices; one fan reported three Stellas and three small waters running about £18. There's no venue-exclusive signature item worth planning around, so eat before you come in if you're watching money.
The Strategy
Bar experiences are mixed. Some fans find plenty of bars and short queues, others hit long toilet queues and a hit-or-miss pre-ordered interval-drinks service, so if you want a drink at the break it's safer to grab it early. No outside food or drink is allowed in, and it gets pulled from your bag at the search.
Merch
Tour merch is sold on the concourse and is overwhelmingly artist-specific rather than venue-branded. There's no re-entry to rely on, so buy anything you want on the way in rather than planning to nip out to an outside stand and come back.
Venue History
The arena opened on 1 April 2000 as part of the National Ice Centre, unveiled by Olympic gold medallist Jayne Torvill and built on the site of the old Nottingham Ice Stadium, which had stood since 1939. The whole ice-centre project cost around £43 million and was the UK's first twin Olympic-size ice-rink complex. Simply Red inaugurated it as a concert room on 29 April 2000.
The early years were rocky. The venue lost around £1 million in its first year, and promoters often routed tours to Sheffield and Birmingham instead. The 2011 draping system, which curtains the room down to about 4,000, was part of how it learned to fill smaller nights.
Naming rights have changed hands repeatedly: Nottingham Arena from 2000, Trent FM Arena from 2008, Capital FM Arena from 2011, and Motorpoint Arena Nottingham since 2015. Locals have watched the sign over the door change four times. Westlife have played here more than any other act, 22 shows between 2001 and 2019, and Little Mix hold the arena's attendance record. Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, The 1975, Elton John and Lady Gaga have all passed through.
Frequently Asked Questions
The seats to watch are on the flat floor and behind the small tiered walls. Floor Row A leaves you staring at the backs of the crowd because the floor is not raked, and specific tiered seats (Row L in even blocks, plus Block 5 Row F, Block 9 Row F, Block 14 Row E and Block 16 Row E) sit behind small walls. Lower-tier centre blocks 3 to 6 are the safe pick.
For a standing show, arrive well before doors if you want the front rail, because the flat floor has only one good zone and it fills fast. For a seated show, arrival is low-stakes: the tram drops you a short walk from the doors, so you're not fighting a car park (see [Getting There](#getting-there)).
The bag limit is enforced for major events: only handbags and small bags up to 35cm x 40cm x 19cm are allowed in. No outside food or drink, and fans report both coming out of bags at the security search. Plan to travel light and eat beforehand.
There is no on-site parking, so driving means a city-centre car park like Trinity Square or Broadmarsh and a 10-minute walk (see [Getting There](#getting-there)). For most fans the NET tram is the better call, dropping you a 5-minute walk from the door and running until around midnight.
For a heavier show like [Spiritbox](/artists/spiritbox), the standing floor is the loud, physical option if you get in early for a spot with height clearance, since the flat floor punishes shorter fans once it fills. If you want to be certain of the view, take a raked lower-tier centre block (3 to 6) over a flat floor seat.
It divides people. Some fans find the sound hollow, others rate it highly, and a 2023 Stereophonics crowd called the acoustics great. It is a boxy multipurpose ice arena, so central positions in the lower tier tend to fare better than the far corners of the bowl.
Treat it as no re-entry. Once you are through the search you are in for the night, so buy any merch and grab anything from outside before you go in rather than planning to step out and return.
The NET tram to the Lace Market stop is the easiest route, a 5-minute walk from the doors with trams roughly every 7 minutes until around midnight. Nottingham railway station is a 10-minute walk if you are coming in by train, and city-centre buses run nearby.
Yes, with the lower tier and floor as the accessible-friendly zones and accessible positions arranged through the venue's access team. The part of the bowl to avoid for limited mobility is the upper tier, where Rows P to V involve many steps and are flagged for vertigo and mobility concerns.
Motorpoint Arena Nottingham Links
Already Seen a Show Here?
Been to Motorpoint Arena Nottingham? Add it to your concert history in the Concerts Remembered app. Which section were you in, and was it worth it?
This guide is based on fan reports, public records, and community discussion. Claims we can’t source are left out rather than estimated, and the charts render only where the sample is large enough to trust. It is not sponsored by or affiliated with Motorpoint Arena Nottingham.
Cite this guide
Concerts Remembered, "Motorpoint Arena Nottingham," concertsremembered.app/venues/motorpoint-arena-nottingham, updated September 2026.