Promoter Henry Cárdenas Acquires Arena Bógota in $35M Deal

A native of Colombia, Cárdenas has lived in the United States since he was a teenager. Here, he built an empire, making CMN the most successful independent Latin promotion company in the country, booking artists including Marc Anthony, Maluma and Bad Bunny. Cárdenas also heads Cardenas Entertainment and Marketing Group and, together with longtime client and business partner Marc Anthony, he launched the Maestro Cares Foundation. 

Now, the new arena opens up an entirely new avenue of business.    

Arena Bogotá is being built on a plot of land that exceeds 1 million square feet and will also include restaurants, shopping, hotels and entertainment. But the center of the complex will be the state of the art arena which will be, by far, the country’s most modern major venue and the only covered arena even remotely approaching this size. 

It will feature a 131 feet high roof with the capacity to resist 110 tons and storage space of more than 40,000 square feet, which will allow load-in of more than 10 trucks simultaneously, the largest loading space of its kind in Latin America. The arena will also boast 2,500 parking spaces -- unheard of, yet essential in a city of the size of Bogotá. 

Cardenas will now see through finishing building the property -- which he purchased from developers Guillermo Rincon and Jaime Sanabria -- and is currently around 60% complete. 

The aim, Cardenas says, is to open in 2020 and host 130–140 events per year, including concerts, political rallies, corporate shows and family shows. 

“This isn’t an arena just for CMN,” he told Billboard. “I am the operator of the arena and I want all general market shows to make Colombia part of their tours, which is something they couldn’t regularly do before.”