What Is It Like to See a Concert at Velodrom?

The Velodrom sells two different rooms and two different stage layouts, and those choices matter more than your block number. The venue publishes a front-stage and a centre-stage concert plan. The fixed stands are split into blocks 1 to 36, each with a left and right half, plus six lounge blocks (L1 to L6) on the seat plans. Nobody has published reliable row-level intel for this building, so treat the advice below as zone-level.

How the Stage Layout Changes Your View

In the front-stage plan, the stage sits at one end of the infield, the floor faces it, and the stands along the sides and the far end look across the track at it. That's the layout behind the best seat report we found: a Rosalía fan in December 2022 wrote that "even with seats high up to the side we could see the stage."

Centre stage is a different animal, and every centre-stage review we found came from the big Schlager productions, like Florian Silbereisen's show each January. The stage sits in the middle and the performers turn from side to side, so every seat spends part of the night looking at someone's back. A January 2026 reviewer paid €127 for what were sold as the best seats and said the performers were mostly seen from behind, with no big screens to make up for it. Two reviews of those productions, in 2019 and 2026, also complained about the sound. If your show is centre stage, weigh that before paying top price for the floor.

UFO Mode: The Infield on Its Own

When your ticket says "UFO im Velodrom," you get the infield alone, standing only, with a limit of 5,000. The stands aren't sold. It's the same flat 68m by 38m floor as in full-arena mode, but with less than half the crowd and none of the distance the stands add.

The reports are good. The May 2024 vampster reviewer found the sold-out room calm, well organised and cool, with security described as highly professional. The 2018 TripAdvisor reviewer called the UFO great for concerts on organisation and sound. That's two independent sources over two different years, which is thin but consistent. Of the two Velodrom formats, the UFO has the better track record in the reviews we found.

The one catch is the flat floor. There's no rake, so past the first rows your view depends on who's in front of you.

Full-Arena Floor, Standing

For big front-stage tours the infield is sold as standing general admission, and some shows split off a front pen sold as Golden Circle. You're closest to the stage here and you're not looking across the track.

The trade-offs come from the floor and the doors. The floor's flat, so shorter fans lose the stage behind the crowd once they're more than a few rows back. And because entry has been slow at several full-arena shows (a Ghost fan in June 2023 said getting in took forever), the doors time on your ticket isn't a reliable guide to when you'll reach the floor. If the rail matters to you, treat entry as the bottleneck, not the queue outside.

Full-Arena Floor, Seated

Seated tours and the Schlager shows put rows of chairs on the infield. The complaint is space. A March 2024 reviewer wrote that the rows were far too narrow, and a September 2025 reviewer said there was more room on a fold-down train seat. Not everyone minds: a December 2023 visitor found the seats small but padded and fairly comfortable, and a March 2025 family at Disney on Ice liked them despite the tight spacing. Across four reports the rows are consistently tight, and the comfort verdict is split.

The bigger issue is that a seated floor gives you a fixed spot but not a raised view. You're still on a flat floor, and at a centre-stage show you're the most likely seat in the house to spend the night behind the performers. For a front-stage show you mainly want to watch, a raised stand seat is the safer buy.

Fixed Stands (Blocks 1 to 36)

The 5,668 permanent seats wrap the track. Even the lowest row sits beyond the banked boards, so the stands are further from the stage than the floor at a comparable arena. What you get in return is height and a clear view over the crowd. The one detailed concert report we have is positive: that Rosalía fan in the upper side seats could still see the stage in December 2022.

Two practical notes. The venue itself recommends aisle seats in the last rows of a block for anyone with limited mobility. And a December 2023 visitor to a seated show reported that plenty of people abandoned their assigned seats and stood in the escape routes, with little done about it. That's one report, not a pattern, but it's worth knowing if you're paying for a seat to sit in.

Standing Ring Behind the Stands (Concourse E1)

The venue lists up to 1,110 standing places in concourse E1, behind the fixed seats. Kling & Freitag installed separate delay speakers for these "standing areas behind the stands," so the sound there has its own feed. We didn't find fan reports on the view from the ring. It's the furthest standing spot in the building, and if you've got one of these tickets you'll be looking over the back of the stands.

Lounges (L1 to L6)

Six lounge blocks appear on the seat plans. We couldn't find a fan review of them, so we can't tell you whether they're worth the premium.

Accessibility Seating

The arena has up to 88 wheelchair seats. In UFO mode there are 9 wheelchair spaces plus 9 companion places on a raised platform. Book wheelchair and companion seats when you buy the ticket and email info@velomax.de in advance. The step-free way in starts at Fritz-Riedel-Straße / Cotheniusstraße, which the venue also recommends for taxi drop-off: it brings you to the upper level of the complex, where two elevators take you down to the main entrance. Every route to the seats, the stands and the accessible toilets is step-free, and walkers can be parked out of the way. Guide-dog users should contact the venue beforehand. Given the March 2024 complaint about the long descent, use the elevator route even if you can manage stairs slowly.