Outside First Direct Arena, Leeds, England.
The construction crews behind England’s newest arena thought they had until early September to put the finishing touches on the $93 million First Direct Arena, built for the city of Leeds outside of Manchester. Its unique shell-shape and ultraintimate 13,500-seating bowl had the teams at Populous and SMG Europe racing to get the building opened by early fall in time for a Sept. 4 concert by Elton John.
That is until a funny thing happened. The Boss came to town.
“This opportunity came for us to open early with a concert by Bruce Springsteen, who had been playing stadium shows in the U.K.” said John Knight, regional VP for SMG Europe. Knight approached Live Nation’s Toby Leighton-Pope with an offer for Springsteen to be the first artist to play the new arena before it officially opened, a “road-test” of sorts explained Knight.
“(Springsteen) had just sold out 65,000 seats in Cardiff, and we knew the demand was there. In fact when we did put the show on sale, all 12,000 seats sold out in about 10 minutes,” he said of the July 24 concert. “Thankfully, Toby trusted us that we could get the building open six weeks ahead of schedule and gave us the show.”
Knight said Springsteen made several positive comments from the stage about Leed’s unique fan-shaped orientation, described as a “supertheater.” Instead of the typical in-the-round or horseshoe feel of most modern arenas, all 9,500 seats in the facility face the stage with the top section nearly 100-feet closer to the stage than your typical arena. The GA floor has a capacity of about 4,000.
This diagram shows First Direct Arena's unique seating configuration.
“We wanted to create something where every seat was a good seat and you don’t have to turn your head to see the stage,” Knight explained.
SMG was selected to manage the facility in 2008 in a RFP process that included bids from AEG, Live Nation and Global Spectrum.
“The Leeds City Council awarded us the contract before they had a design for the facility, or even an architect,” Knight said. “They very wisely recognized the importance of bringing on the operator to help design the facility and inform on how it should be done. The idea for the supertheater design came from our Managing Director John Sutherland, who saw the importance of creating Europe’s first purpose-driven, fan-friendly arena.”
SMG pays a straight rental fee to the city of Leeds for the building and is able to keep all ancillary fees, including ticketing charges from its European partner CTS Eventim and in-house catering. The lease for the building runs 25 years.
“It’s a straight profit-loss deal,” said Knight, who wouldn’t disclose his annual rent payment to Leeds.
First Direct Arena’s naming rights partner is a Leeds-based bank owned by British multinational firm HSBC. First Direct is an “online-only bank,” explained Knight, and will help SMG market shows to the arena using the bank’s massive social media and customer data-base.
“It’s not just about getting a check, but what the sponsor can give to you in terms of access to customer data,” Knight said.
The new arena will also serve as SMG Europe’s unofficial “flagship venue” in Europe and the fourth arena in the U.K. for the firm, which also manages Phones 4U Arena in Manchester, Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle and Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
“We now manage 44,000 arena seats in the U.K. and our centralized booking office in Manchester will offer a one-stop shop for promoters to compare all of our avails at once,” he said.
Managing the building will be Ben Williams, previously the Marketing and Commercial Director at the Manchester arena. Alisa Oliver is the building’s Assistant General Manager and John Webster is the building’s Operations Director.
Elton John officially opens the building on Sept. 4, followed by Leonard Cohen on Sept. 7 and the Kaiser Chiefs on Sept. 13. So far, the arena has 22 shows listed through the end of 2013.
Interviewed for this article: John Knight, +44 161-950-5333