Our guide to Wembley Stadium in London, England, includes information on events, tickets, parking, public transportation, nearby hotels, seating, NFL games and more. Read on to find out how to get the most out of your gameday experience.

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It’s hard to dispute that Wembley Stadium is the most iconic sports venue in all of England, and in fact in all of the United Kingdom as a whole.

And why wouldn’t it be? Nearly every event of national interest is held at Wembley Stadium. Home matches of England’s men’s and women’s national soccer teams, the Three Lions and Lionesses, are held here. So are the championship matches for two different domestic cup competitions, the Carabao Cup and FA Cup.

And Wembley Stadium frequently gets top-level events such as the UEFA Euros (it hosted the women’s final in 2022, won by England) and the UEFA Champions League final, which it will host again in 2024.

Big-time rugby matches are often staged at Wembley Stadium each year, and American football fans know it as the home to at least one NFL game every fall (typically at least one involving the Jacksonville Jaguars, who have come to regard Wembley as a second home).

And don’t forget the numerous international tours that stop at Wembley, making it one of the most highly regarded concert venues in the entire world.

Indeed, Wembley has a rich and eventful history, made more interesting by the fact that this is actually the second iteration of the stadium. The original Wembley was demolished in 2002, with the new and much larger stadium opening in 2007.

Whether you come for a big-time soccer match, an NFL game or another event, Wembley Stadium offers a live experience that is rivaled by few venues around the world.

Buy tickets for Wembley Stadium events on LiveFootballTickets.com.

Getting to the stadium

Wembley Stadium takes its name after its location in Wembley, a suburban neighborhood that is considered part of the greater London region — thus, “London” is part of its official address.

However, if you’re a visitor, you’ll quickly learn that the greater region is massive, and thus Wembley Stadium is not near to central London or to many of the neighborhoods that tourists often frequent and choose for hotels.

As with most major points of interest around London, the best way to reach the stadium is via the Underground subway system, aka the Tube. The Wembley Park station is the closest Tube stop to the stadium, and is served by the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines, both of which also travel through central London.

The Wembley Park station is impressively large and well-equipped to handle the crush of spectators who come through for events at the stadium. Upon arrival, fans descend a large staircase and embark upon a half-mile walk south to the venue, with many shops and restaurants along the way to grab your attention (more on that below).

If you examine a map of the Tube system, you’ll notice two other stations with “Wembley” in their names. Wembley Central and North Wembley are both stops on the Bakerloo line, as well as the Overground system.

Wembley Central is the better of those two options to access the stadium, and fans will have about a mile to walk along the High Road and then across the well-known White Horse Bridge, located just southwest of the venue.

Spectators coming from outside greater London can use National Rail services to reach Wembley, as the stadium has its own station located adjacent to White Horse Square.

Parking at Wembley Stadium

Owing to its huge size, Wembley does have several “official” car parks — the most prominent one being the Red parking structure that’s attached to the stadium ramp. It’s located just west of the venue.

However, because of the development around the stadium and the fact that the Wembley Park neighborhood is a dense residential zone, parking for events is extremely limited and highly discouraged. That’s especially true if you’re a visitor to London. Luckily, the robustness of the public transport system makes coming to Wembley by car largely unnecessary.

If you do choose to come by car, you can purchase parking permits online in advance for all Wembley Stadium events.

Want to visit Wembley Stadium on a non-matchday? Book a tour on Viator.

London hotels near Wembley Stadium

• Hilton London Wembley – 0.2 miles away
• ibis London Wembley – 0.2 miles away
• St George’s Hotel – Wembley – 0.3 miles away
Search for more London hotels on Booking.com.

Map of the surrounding area

Things to do around the stadium

The “regeneration” of Wembley that took place in the mid-2000s also brought to life a vibrant, dense neighborhood full of high-rise residences, shopping/restaurant zones and hotels, all within a stone’s throw of the stadium.

Much of what a fan would consider frequenting on the day of an event is accessible just on the walk from the Wembley Park Tube station to the stadium. On matchdays, the various restaurants, coffeeshops and quick-service eateries along what is officially known as Olympic Way are bustling with activity.

Numerous food trucks and pop-up memorabilia stores will line this thoroughfare, and several of the hotels serving the Wembley Stadium area can be found here, also.

More options exist beyond Olympic Way. When you reach the staircase leading up to Wembley’s main entrance, veer off to the right instead for more shops and restaurants. You’ll see the Wembley Arena to your right, and beyond that is the London Designer Outlet, an outdoor mall full of shops and food-court style eateries.

If you’ve arrived in the area via the Wembley Central station, you’ll find plenty of food and drink options along the High Road that leads toward the stadium. These include a handful of pubs, as well as chain restaurants like Nando’s, McDonald’s and KFC.

London restaurants near Wembley Stadium

• The White Horse – pub, 0.1 miles away
• Las Iguanas – Mexican, 0.2 miles away
• Frankie & Benny’s – diner, 0.2 miles away
Search for more London restaurants on Tripadvisor.

Watching a game at Wembley Stadium

Wembley Stadium is the second-largest soccer stadium by capacity in all of Europe (behind only Barcelona’s Camp Nou). And it feels every bit as large as the capacity would suggest, both in external appearance and in the cavernous feel of the seating bowl.

For many fans, the experience starts at the base of the huge staircase that fronts the north side of the stadium. Ascending this staircase puts you in front of what is considered the main entrance, with the statue of English football great Bobby Moore serving as a convenient meeting point.

The stadium layout is divided into four color-coded quadrants, green, yellow, blue and red. This designation on your ticket can help you find your gate, and starting with the staircase, numerous signs and queues filter fans toward their appropriate entrances. This is to aid with crowd control as 90,000 fans descend upon the stadium.

Wembley Stadium’s seating bowl is divided into five levels. Levels 1 and 5 serve as regular-admission levels — fans holding tickets for those tiers aren’t allowed to access other levels of the stadium. Meanwhile, Levels 2, 3 and 4 are premium areas, full of extra amenities. Fans holding tickets to those levels can move about freely between the three tiers.

Of course, Wembley’s defining feature is the giant arch that spans overhead. It can be seen from miles away and, in our experience, makes the stadium very easy to spot when looking out on greater London while on approach to Heathrow Airport.

The arch helps hold up the canopy that covers nearly all of the stadium’s seating bowl from the elements and makes watching a match at Wembley a mostly comfortable experience no matter which seating level you’re on. The roof also features adjustable panels on the south side that allows the stadium’s grounds crew to allow more sunlight to shine on the pitch as needed.

Whether it’s a soccer, rugby or NFL match you’re watching at Wembley, the stadium experience is largely the same from within the seating bowl. Much like NFL stadiums in the U.S., Wembley offers two large videoboards, one at each end, for replays and entertainment.

The stadium’s vastness extends to its concourses, which are very well equipped to handle 90,000 fans. Famously, Wembley has the most toilets of any building in the entire world, with 2,618.

Food and drink at Wembley Stadium

While Wembley’s food options are far from adventurous, they do offer an interesting representation of cuisine in England.

Meat pies and sausages from the award-winning Wicks Manor are among the choices, as well as many stands offering burger-and-chips and chicken-and-chips meals (remember, for the uninitiated: “chips” are what the British call French fries). The ubiquitous M&S Food store, a staple of many transport stations in England, can also be found at Wembley, offering take-and-eat food items.

Meanwhile, the premium tiers (Levels 2-4) are well-equipped with food stands and bars, as well as two sit-down restaurants appropriately named the Three Lions and Lionesses.

Alcoholic beverages can be purchased at bars and stalls throughout the stadium, but as is standard practice in English football venues, they must be consumed on the concourses and cannot be brought out into the seating bowl.

Water refilling stations can be found throughout the stadium. Though filled water bottles aren’t allowed at Wembley, empty plastic bottles up to 500 milliliters are permitted.

Original publish date: March 13, 2024

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