DAVE WITHEY to Greenham Common air base, where the Americans had what they called bleacher seating, had a look, came back, got a bit of paper out and designed a seating system. It was just benches, not individual seats. He built it for the table tennis international and then thought there might be a business here.
So it’ s fair to say Ron Smith was one of the first people to create a temporary seating system for live events in the UK?
I think that ' s absolutely right. The business was called Arena Promotional Facilities for whatever reason, and it grew quickly. Arena ' s been through lots of ownerships, and it ' s grown into a global operation now, but it ' s always been innovative. Ron didn ' t rest on his laurels. He said, " We need individual seats," and designed a completely new system from scratch, which was really quick to build. Arena Seating has always been innovative, right through to the Clearview parabolic reconfigurable system, which was developed specifically for the London 2012 Olympics and has gone on to be used all over the world.
The London 2012 Olympics was a landmark for so many people in the UK events industry, but you must have had many of them in the past 50 years?
For me it ' s all about the people I ' ve worked with, and the clients I ' ve become great friends with. I remember Ron coming to us a few years in and saying, " I ' ve got this job in Egypt." This was a production of Aida on the banks of the Nile in Luxor. We shipped all the kit out there, built a huge grandstand and had a great time. It was probably the first overseas job we did.
The London Olympics is a massive highlight for me. How often do the Olympics come to London? We were pretty innovative with the stadium we built at Horse Guards Parade for the beach volleyball. Clearview was led by Joe O ' Neill, who was MD of Arena Seating at the time, under a previous ownership. We needed something parabolic, so the further you get from the action, the steeper the rake is, and you get a great C-value, which is a great sightline. We built it specifically for the Olympics; everybody ' s view was great, it worked brilliantly. Perhaps if we hadn ' t developed Clearview, Arena wouldn ' t have grown into the global organisation it is now, and we wouldn ' t have done the Paris Olympics and have offices around the world.
The other thing that sticks out for me is that I ' ve done about 22 Elton John tours. That ' s a real highlight, working with Barry Marshall and Marshall Arts all those years, doing tour after tour in stadiums all over the world.
“ I PRIDE MYSELF ON HAVING GREAT FRIENDS WHO HAPPEN TO BE CLIENTS.”
Because I ' ve worked on every single tournament, Queen ' s Club is probably the big one. It was the Stella Artois Championships when it all started. I remember going there in year one, and they said, " We need to put some seats on this court, Dave." I think we built a 300- seat grandstand on the court. It ' s grown a lot since then, and we ' ve incorporated
Elton John Farewell Tour- Bristol City FC hospitality areas, more upmarket seats and private boxes. It ' s still one of the most impressive jobs Arena Seating does.
How challenging and enjoyable, was it working on the many boxing projects over the years?
I ' ve got a thousand stories about the boxing, working with Frank Warren especially, because he led the way. Back in the day, it was Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn, with Barry Hearn. One thing that ' s changed enormously in all industries is the paperwork. You make sure you ' re paid and all the paperwork is in place before you arrive on site. It didn ' t used to be like that. We ' re still working with Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn, and it ' s ultra professional now.
You ' ve been in the events industry a long time and seen many changes. Is the industry better to work in now, or just different?
Some things are a lot better. Is it as enjoyable? It can be. You go through phases. When I was running the business as MD of seating, I didn ' t really enjoy it and everybody at Arena at the time knew that. It ' s so much more corporate now, as it is in all businesses. What I love is the interaction with the clients, being at the
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