WIMBLEDON
Supporting the Wimbledon Championships
ARENA GROUP
Arena Group has provided grandstand seating to the All England Lawn Tennis Club( AELTC) for the Wimbledon Championships for the past 47 years. Its regional MD UK & Europe Ross Robertson says that longevity of relationship brings with it multiple benefits.
“ We have team members who have been working on this site on the delivery of the Championships for many years, and when you have that level of experience people are really invested and take great pride in the project.” says Robertson.“ At Arena, we have a real sense of accountability and ownership; we want people to really own the deliveries of the projects and celebrate those successes.”
This year’ s Wimbledon saw Arena deliver the installation of 3,800 seats spread across eight courts including 1,825 Clearview seats on Court 12 providing unobstructed sightlines. Over the past decade, Arena has transitioned gradually from A-Frame to Clearview seats, introduced a‘ parabolic’ rise into Court 12 along with areas known as‘ voids’ in the court structure to facilitate a used balls shop and a quiet room for religious activities.
Robertson says a key focus for Arena is sustainability across all its projects, and it has been worked hand-in-hand with the AELTC to meet its sustainability goals and objectives. Initiatives include the use of electric forklifts, ensuring local accommodation is booked to minimise travel and supporting local businesses where possible. The re-use of materials is also a key focus.
Arena Group ' s Ross Roberton
With the 10-week build happening in a relatively small site located in a residential area, the working hours were limited to between 8am and 6pm, and a huge amount of planning went into making sure the project ran smoothly.
“ There are a lot of moving parts, the clients team are very experienced, very knowledgeable, and they are also very proactive in ensuring that the scheduling is on track,” says Robertson.“ Whether it’ s the transport planning, scheduling deliveries, integrating the build plan with the client so that we ' re aligned with the work of all the other suppliers, it ' s all about planning, planning and more planning, then being able to adapt the plan as and when required.”
STAR LIVE
Star Live’ s principal contractor duties saw it work primarily in the Southern Village area, installing more than 50 temporary-to-semi-permanent event structures including retail units, sponsor activations, seating stands, F & B units and operational facilities.
“ When we started working with the AELTC, they expressed a desire to improve the Southern Village because it was not as well populated as perhaps it could have been,” says Star Live CEO Grahame Muir.“ One of the challenges we were asked to look at was how we could help improve the customer experience, dwell time and footfall. The AELTC wanted everything to be on one level, so we built in a huge and complex scaffold grid to enable all the partners including Ralph Lauren, Amex and Vodafone to be on the same level. The success of the project has been reflected in a rise in both dwell time and footfall, it ' s now a really busy destination site.”
Star Live ' s Grahame Muir and Lorraine Scanes
accessaa. co. uk 31