What to know
- Residents near Rogers Stadium say concert noise and bass vibrations from the 50,000-person show Sunday night could be heard up to 15 kilometres away, with complaints flooding social media after Bruno Mars opened the 2026 season.
- People across north Toronto and Vaughan reported hearing or feeling the concerts from inside their homes, with some saying the bass vibrations disrupted sleep and even woke babies.
- No More Noise says residents feel “blindsided” by the venue, arguing new vinyl cladding added to reduce sound does little to stop low-frequency bass vibrations travelling through neighbourhoods.
- Residents are demanding stricter concert limits, firm 11 p.m. curfews, better communication, more noise mitigation measures, and real-time event updates, while advocates say permanent solutions like roofing and better speaker isolation would be costly but more effective.
Bruno Mars may have thrilled fans inside Rogers Stadium this weekend, but residents across Toronto and Vaughan say they experienced something very different: booming bass vibrations shaking their homes late into the night.
Toronto residents say Rogers Stadium concerts can be heard kilometres away
Social media has been on fire ever since the stadium opened at Downview Park on the north side of the city.
Concerns and complaints from last year haven’t slowed, trickling into the 2026 season once artist Bruno Mars opened up the summer schedule on May 24.
Following Mars’ Sunday concert, residents in surrounding areas of the arena were able to hear the concert from home.
“Yup, [I can hear it] pretty clear as well,” one Reddit user replied in a thread. “I’m a stone throw away.”
“I know people just west of Earl Bales park. They can hear it if they go outside, but not from inside their house,” another Reddit user said.
But residents nearby weren’t the only ones hearing bass in the air, and “Versace on the Floor,” with some residents up to 10 kilometres away noting the disturbance.
“It’s 10:31 p.m., I’m at Yonge and Steeles on the 15th floor facing West and I’m pretty sure I can hear Bruno Mars’ concert at Rogers stadium,” a Reddit user over 8 kilometres away said.
“A few blocks north of Yonge and Steeles and I can hear it too,” another Reddit user from 9 kilometres away wrote.
‘My house is vibrating’: Residents react online
Some even claimed to hear the show in Vaughan, more than 15 kilometres north of the stadium.
“Can hear it in Vaughan, my house is practically vibrating,” one Reddit user said.
“I live around Major Mac and Dufferin in Vaughan, the bass could be heard from here,” another Reddit user over 12 kilometres away said.
“My mother also heard it in Maple,” someone added.
The music and bass of the concert was so loud, residents’ schedules were disturbed.
“Yes [we heard it] and we are pretty far away! Woke the baby up,” a Reddit user wrote.
Some opinions online clashed, with a few people saying they thought the noise was quieter than last year’s concert season, while others thought the opposite.
“It’s wild, never heard their concerts this loud last year.”
Noise advocates say residents feel ‘blindsided’
Ingrid Buday is the founder and executive director of No More Noise, an anti-noise advocacy group that works with multiple residential associations for communities across Toronto. She says residents in the area have told her they aren’t happy.
“We basically worked with the residents to understand what their concerns were,” Buday said.
She added when speaking with residents in the area, they noted one main problem: the bass.
“…The word vibration came up, and that’s that deep bass that just travels those low frequency waves that just travel a long, long period, and I know that people reported noise issues back [in 2025], and the city and Live Nation were both doing noise level monitoring, but just because you’re monitoring doesn’t mean it’s okay,” Buday explained.
Low-frequency bass waves travel farther than higher-pitched sounds and can physically vibrate through buildings and concrete.
Recently, Aquilini Investment Group, who owns the stadium, added vinyl cladding to the sides of the Rogers Stadium in an effort to muffle the noise for those outside the arena. But Buday says this cladding does nothing to block out bass vibrations.
“Those low frequency waves can go through concrete, so they’re going to go through that vinyl cladding like it’s not even there,” Buday said.
Residents have also told No More Noise that the vinyl additions replacing the past infrastructure was “useless.
“I have somebody who is basically at the Shepherd and Allen intersection there in those condos, and she said it was no different than last year,” Buday said.
When it comes to keeping to legislative noise levels and not surpassing the noise-by-law, Buday said it’s not always up to Live Nation.
“They do need to be good neighbors, but their capacity to be good neighbors in an offending venue is going to be really hard,” she said. “I don’t think bands really care about our noise bylaws, they care about a good show, making money, and making fans happy.”
The City of Toronto noise-by-law states performance volumes must not exceed the mandated 55 dB(A), referring to sound or 70 dB(C), referring to physically feeling the frequency, between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. After 11 p.m. those sound regulations drop to 50 dB(A) or 65 dB(C).
If an artist performing were to breach these rules, Live Nation would be fined about $800, according to Buday.
“Last year, [for] System of a Down, that show went over 11 p.m. and so they got fined for that, and my understanding is… they are taking the city to court on that, so then the fine is about $800,” she said. “Is that a course of business? I don’t know.”
What changes are residents demanding?
Buday said residents in the area have sent a list of demands to the appropriate stakeholders, talking about what can be done in the future to remedy the situation, and what can happen right now.
“All they want right now is communication, that’s very important,” Buday said. “…The impact will be mitigated if people know that there’s going to be fireworks at 11 o’clock at night. They can prepare their kids, they can prepare their dogs, they can manage it.”
Additionally, residents have also asked for a limited number of concerts each year, an 11 p.m. noise curfew with no exceptions, public consultation for event extensions, further noise mitigation, a traffic management plan, and a realtime event hotline among other demands.
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Could Rogers Stadium reduce concert noise?
Buday says there’s some actions that could be done to muffle noise and vibration, but it would be expensive.
“There’s a way that you can decouple the base speakers if they sit on the ground,” Buday said, referring to the practice of physically isolating a speaker from the ground to lessen vibration.
Although, Buday said band preference makes this more difficult.
“I think every band comes in and they say, ‘Well, we want our speakers here,’ and then this other band says, ‘Well, we want our speakers here,’ and so…what is Live Nation going to do? Other than turning it down at the source, right?”
Buday added that sometimes fan preference also takes precedence.
“Things that can be done at the mixing board to reduce those low frequencies, but yet there’s people in the concert, they want to feel that in their chest,” she said. “It’s difficult.”
Additionally, Buday said other venues, while still able to be heard in the immediate vicinity, don’t disturb residents too far from the concert. Like near Rogers Centre in the heart of downtown Toronto.
“A roof makes a really big difference, and concrete, and that it was designed for that,” she said. “There’s noise mitigation all over our [other] stadiums… a roof is a really good thing. They might not have had to cancel Bruno Mars the first night if they had a roof.”
All in all, Buday wants residents to know they don’t have to go through the disruptions thinking they’re alone.
“It’s really important to share the resident’s point of view, because many people feel that they’re alone, or that they just have to suffer through it, and no, they don’t,” she said. “We can make changes, and make Rogers Stadium a better neighbour.”
