Concert History | Joe Robbie Stadium — A Free Internet Sample Marketed a $29.95 Pay-Per-View

<!-- concert-queue-id: 1183; dedup-key: the rolling stones|1994-11-25|joe robbie stadium|miami -->
On 25 November 1994, the Rolling Stones performed at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami. The session was the paid destination of a two-stage home-viewing campaign: one week earlier, twenty minutes from the tour's Cotton Bowl stop had been sent free over the experimental Multicast Backbone; the Miami concert was offered through ordinary cable pay-per-view for $29.95.

Contemporary Washington Post reporting makes the contrast explicit. The Internet sample reached only about 200 connected sites and required high-speed access then found mainly at universities, companies, and government facilities. It was not the first live concert carried online, and the paper reported that its promoters designed it to advertise the 25 November pay-per-view. The experiment therefore worked less as a replacement for television than as publicity for a billable cable event.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1994/11/19/mick-jaggers-overbyte/f187fe21-e03a-41fa-92d7-0c7ffdb4a76c/

Broadcast documentation identifies the Miami programme as Hoodoo U Voodoo, transmitted live from Joe Robbie Stadium and directed by David Mallet. A later independent account of the archival release confirms the same venue and date. This memory does not use the later concert film as evidence for the night's set; the historical point is the distribution chain around the live session.
https://aeppli.ch/Stones/TUG1994-1997Up.pdf
https://www.iheart.com/content/2018-09-25-the-rolling-stones-voodoo-lounge-uncut-to-come-with-unseen-live-footage/

The mechanism joined one physical stadium tour to two remote audiences: a small, technically equipped Internet public received the free sample, while cable systems sold access to the full Miami broadcast. It captures live-music distribution in 1994 at a transition point—experimental networking generated attention, while established pay television handled the commercial event.

Coordinate method: the pin at 25.958056, -80.238889 reconciles Wikidata's stadium point with OpenStreetMap relation 2278785, which maps the Hard Rock Stadium footprint. The venue was called Joe Robbie Stadium in 1994; it now carries the Hard Rock name and was substantially renovated in 2015–16. A 180-metre precision radius represents the centre of the stadium footprint, not a camera or stage position.
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q864339
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2278785

Cover: Dimitris Labatos photographed the unfinished Joe Robbie Stadium interior on 24 April 1987 during its final months of construction. The image is licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jrs4.jpg
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Caption: Joe Robbie Stadium during final construction in 1987; this image shows the venue, not the 1994 concert.