MEO Arena
Before 1998, Portugal had no venue that could hold a world-class concert on a rainy night — so they built one for Expo '98.
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Portugal's largest indoor arena at 20,000 capacity, MEO Arena was designed to close the gap between Lisbon's small halls (capped at 4,000 people) and open-air stadiums. Portuguese architect Regino Cruz created it alongside Skidmore, Owings & Merrill — the firm that won first-prize competitions for the Olympic stadiums of Manchester and Berlin. The name has changed three times since 2013, but the building is the same Expo '98 structure.
What to look for
- The exterior form designed by Regino Cruz and SOM, the firm behind Olympic stadium contest wins in Manchester and Berlin
- The sheer scale of the 20,000-seat bowl — a size that simply did not exist in Portugal before this building opened
- Gare do Oriente a short distance away, the rail hub that gives the arena a catchment area stretching across the whole country
Walk directly from Gare do Oriente; major highway interchanges nearby make it reachable from anywhere in Portugal.
MEO Arena is one of 36 sights worth the detour in Lisbon, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Lisbon pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Lisbon
- Belém TowerThe last thing Portuguese explorers saw before the Atlantic swallowed their ships whole.
- Vasco da Gama BridgeThe EU's longest bridge opened on 29 March 1998 to mark 500 years since Vasco da Gama found the sea route to India — and at this scale, that ambition registers.
- Jerónimos MonasteryVasco da Gama prayed here the night before sailing to India — then came back to rest here forever.
- Estádio da LuzThe stadium that replaced a 120,000-seat colossus, then hosted a Euro final, two Champions League finals, and 17 million visitors — all under a name that traces to a church, not poetry.
- Estádio José AlvaladeFifty thousand seats, all dark green — two decades of deliberate repainting turned Sporting CP's home into a single-colour architectural statement.
- 25 de Abril BridgeThe bridge still wears the date the dictatorship ended.