Lausanne (Switzerland) Hockey Club has retained AEG Facilities in a 10-year deal to manage their new state-of-the-art arena in Lausanne, a city which is also home to the International Olympic Federation and various other national and Olympic sports federations.
In addition, it is a market that has never had a big arena designed to host international tours, effectively creating a new market in the heart of Europe, said Bob Newman, AEG Facilities president. “It’s a new gateway market.”
The new 11,500-seat arena is set to open in Summer 2019. The city-owned venue will be home to the Lausanne Hockey Club Lions.
A temporary venue is being erected by NUSSLI to house the team during the two-year construction period. Newman explained they will open the temporary venue, tear down the existing 9,000-seat, 1984-era arena, build the new arena on that same footprint and then tear down the temporary venue. He added that the temporary building is modular construction, but quite substantial and adequate for the next two seasons. It would have no future use, though, as the new arena is part of a sports complex, to include several ice rinks, a badminton club and other health and fitness enterprises, some of which already exist.
The deal was not the result of a bid process, Newman said. AEG Facilities already had a relationship with the Lausanne Hockey Club, including its president Sacha Weibel. Richard Krezwick, SVP, AEG Facilities, who is based in London, will oversee the project. A GM is to be named.
AEG Facilities will also design the overall grand opening plan for the new Lausanne arena, which is to include first-class premium seating and four special seating configurations that will accommodate events ranging from 4,000 to 11,500.
On the books is the 2020 Youth Olympic Games, which will be held in Lausanne for the first time in the new arena. The proximity of so many sports federations and the International Olympic Federation bodes well for sports bookings, but the arena also fills a void in the concert market. “It’s right-sized for events,” Newman said. “Shows had been passing by with no place to stop.” He noted it is just 210 kilometers from Leon and 550 kilometers from Paris and routes well from Milan or Zurich.
UNESCO is also housed in Lausanne and major corporations have a significant office presence there, Newman said.
In Europe, AEG already owns or operates a network of arenas that include The O2 (London), Mercedes-Benz Arena (Berlin), AccorHotels Arena (Paris), The SSE Hydro (Glasgow), Barclaycard Arena (Hamburg), Friends Arena, Tela2 Arena and Ericson Globe (Stockholm) and Stadio Della Roma (Rome), the planned new stadium home of FC Roma.
