More than 60,000 fans will now be permitted to attend the semi-finals and final of UEFA EURO 2020 at Wembley Stadium, increasing attendance to 75% capacity during the latter stages of the tournament. Read more
England’s Euro 2020 group games at Wembley Stadium will be the first sporting event at which vaccine passports will be used in the UK. Read more
The UK Government has announced a series of pilot events to pave the way for larger audiences to attend sporting events, theatre and gigs this summer. Read more
Matchroom Boxing will take over The SSE Arena, Wembley for four events in October, November and December. Read more
The SSE Arena, Wembley, one of the UK’s most iconic concert and events venues, has installed a brand-new house lighting system in its 12,000 capacity auditorium. Read more
A brand new refurbished restaurant and accompanying VIP lounge are now open at The SSE Arena, Wembley. Read more
The SSE Arena, Wembley had its busiest ever year in 2018 since it re-opened in 2006, welcoming one million visitors through its doors. Read more
Tottenham Hotspur will not move into their new stadium until March at the earliest as delays to building work continue. Read more
Delays to the opening of Tottenham Hotspur FC’s new stadium look set to continue well into the new year after January’s game against Manchester United was switched to Wembley. Read more
Tottenham Hotspur have been forced to delay the opening of their new stadium because of issues with critical safety systems. Read more
A major new concert venue could be built in west London as part of the regeneration of an athletics stadium. Read more
Tottenham Hotspur will play its first Premier League match in its new stadium against Liverpool on September 15, the club has announced. Read more
The sports industry has an opportunity to become a global leader in sustainability and must rise to the challenge, the Sustainable Innovation in Sport Conference 2018, heard this week. Read more
The new exclusive members’ club within Club Wembley at England’s National Stadium opened its doors for the first time in the FA Community Shield between Arsenal FC and Chelsea FC. Read more
Club Wembley has released never before seen images of the brand new One Twenty Club, ahead of its opening next season. Read more
Two spectacular timelapse videos have been released this week, one showing the transformation of Wembley for the Joshua/Klitschko world title fight and the other of the construction of the SunTrust Park ballbark in Atlanta. Read more
Chelsea’s plans to build a new Herzog & de Meuron designed stadium at Stamford Bridge have been given the go-ahead by the local council. Read more
Sports sector stalwarts Arena Seating and Terraplas Plc played a vital role in this week’s transformation of Wembley Stadium from FIFA World Cup warm-up game on May 30 to Super Middleweight Title Fight on May 31, followed by a quick reconfiguration for this weekend’s trio of sold-out One Direction concerts.
The title re-match was one of the toughest turnarounds in the stadium’s history: with it being just 24hrs before the England v Peru game. After the 90,000 football fans vacated the premises the venue needed to be completely reconfigured. This included laying Terraplas’ turf protection system onto the pitch, building the ring, and installing the temporary seating, which was completed by Arena Seating who had been contracted by promoters Matchroom to provide 8,456 flat tip-up seats, 908 of which were ringside.
Originally expecting to sell around 35,000 tickets, over 80,000 were sold in the end, making it the biggest boxing match in British history, smashing the previous record of 70,000 attendance for 1933’s heavyweight bout between Jack Doyle and Jack Petersen.
Martin Clark, Project Director at Arena Seating – part of global event services company, Arena Group – commented:
This was a relatively straight forward job equipment wise, but the turnaround is one of the tightest we’ve ever had to work to. We had over 50 staff on site, working through the night for the build and the removal, with 8×40’ trucks delivering equipment. The timing of vehicle movements and installation needed to be precisely scheduled along with other suppliers.
With all of the additional tickets sold, the floor plan changed numerous times to accommodate the extra seats and comply with all access, egress and fire safety regulations. There was no room for mistakes as we worked to the carefully detailed seating manifests.
The removal had to be completed within a tight overnight timeframe to allow for the reconfiguration of the stadium in preparation for super group boy band One Direction, who will play their three sell-out gigs to over 250,000 fans this weekend, June 6-8.
You can watch a time-lapse video showing the transformation online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzgWm905iZ8
Wembley will host a specially branded day of semi-finals for the Rugby League World Cup 2013. The semi-final double header will be known as The Big Hit. RLWC2013 General Manager Sally Bolton said:
Tickets for the marquee games at the tournament are selling really well and we know that the appetite for great sport and unique events especially in London is huge. So we have created The Big Hit to underline what a fantastic, value for money event the semi-final double header is for the London sports fan.
The Big Hit concept was devised in consultation with Mark Evans, the person behind the hugely successful Big Game concept which introduced radical new pricing and marketing strategies into Rugby Union and helped break the world record attendance for a club game.
Wembley has proved capable of holding multiple sport events since it opted for a Desso Grassmaster pitch, which is popular with stadiums that host rugby and soccer. Old Trafford stadium will host the RLWC final and industry commentators have suggested that it will also need Grassmaster to avoid pitch damage for its regular Premiership and Champions League games.
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson said:
Rugby League World Cup 2013 will offer Londoners and visitors to the capital the chance to see some of the world’s best players battle it out in one of our finest sporting venues.
Former Wigan and Great Britain star and RLWC2013 Ambassador Martin Offiah said:
Wembley is an iconic stadium and the chance to see both semi-finals there on one day is amazing. I’ve no doubt it will be filled to the rafters for The Big Hit.
London Mayor Boris Johnson takes a ‘Big Hit’ for London from RLWC2013 ambassador Martin Offiah. Photo credit: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire.
