I have been to many concerts, it is one of the things that makes me incredibly happy. I know it seems maybe a bit bizarre talking about gigs in this strand but I thought of something – gig venues are ‘technically’ related to travel. I have had to travel many times for concerts and sometimes it is hard to find out what the venues are actually like, from a visitor perspective. So, ever so often, I am going to talk about different venues and will tell you my personal experiences of them. Today we are going to talk about a venue that inspired it.

United Center, Chicago

Ever so often, I have been lucky enough to go to concerts abroad and that can be really fun to do. One of the places I have been able to do that is Chicago and I thought it would be fun to have a look at it as a venue today.

The United Center is the home of the NHL team Blackhawks and the NBA team Chicago Bulls. It is also a venue that has many concerts and events. It has a capacity of around 23,500 which is pretty big.

In 2011, I was lucky enough to see NKOTBSB (with support act Jordin Sparks), we got the tickets last minute but we were still able to get them near the front near the stage. The stage went through the whole arena so we were halfway up the stadium but still with a fantastic view.

I found it a great venue for concerts – it had really great music acoustics. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was the distance the venue was from the town and after a show it is a pretty long walk back.

I always say to people go and see a gig in America because they are bigger and better – we even had a member of the band – Donny Wahlberg – come out into the audience which you don’t really get in the UK.