Fans outside Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. (Courtesy Milwaukee Bucks)
The Milwaukee Bucks didn’t set out to build the finest arena, but team executives think they came pretty darn close to it.
“We did not pound our chest and say we were going to build the greatest arena, but we did on every level, every finish, every operational standard,” Bucks President Peter Feigin said. “We’re entering the entertainment business. It’s all about first impressions and we want to be the gold standard.”
If quirkiness defines greatness, Fiserv Forum fills the bill. It starts with the arena branded for a largely unknown financial technology firm, which opens up a whole new category for naming rights. The funky, curved roofline defining the $524 million facility and the Panorama Club at catwalk level, which looks like a premium-level space but is open to all ticket holders, are among the distinctive design features.
It’s all part of the arena’s European feel. Fiserv Forum’s influences cover a heavy dose of U.K. venues after the Bucks traveled overseas to observe innovations in sports and entertainment from an international perspective. In addition to sports, live music is a key piece of Fiserv Forum’s business as the Bucks aim to put Milwaukee back on the map as a primary market for concert tours (see related story).
To get tips from both sides, Feigin and Raj Saha, Fiserv Forum’s general manager, toured London’s Broadway theater district and multiple Premier League soccer stadiums. Together, they took note of the acoustics and backstage experiences at Koko, Roundhouse and the Savoy Theatre; Arsenal’s integration of team history into Emirates Stadium’s artwork; and Manchester City’s Tunnel Club at Etihad Stadium with behind-the-scenes views of players preparing for the match.
They also visited the O2 Arena — where the Bucks played a game in 2015 and where Saha was part of AEG’s management team for six years — and Indigo at The O2, a small concert venue next door to the arena. They liked how the adjoining entertainment district ties into the overall experience at the complex.
Domestically, officials paid close attention to the NBA arenas in Sacramento, Calif.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Orlando, Fla., to gain insight on the smallest details, from the correct square footage per person in the premium clubs to catering benefits for touring production crews.
“We have a file of over 5,000 photographs we took from tours of 20 arenas and stadiums … all of the interesting things soccer teams are doing with their locker rooms and practice facilities. We love those touches,” Feigin said.
The roof wrapping Fiserv Forum from top to bottom along the north side is a special feature. It’s made of zinc and treated with a hand-crafted finishing process that brings out multiple colors in the structure’s panels, said Gabe Braselton, an associate principal with Populous.
The firm teamed with HNTB and local architect Eppstein Uhen to design the arena. The radical-looking roof represents one international influence. Zinc has been used on roofs and facades in Europe for hundreds of years and half the roofs on Paris buildings alone are made of the durable material, Braselton said.
“One of the reasons why it lasts is because it goes through its own process with the oxidized layer,” he said. “Here, we’re kind of advancing some of that protective coating and getting some color along the way.”
For the Bucks, the wraparound roof serves as a point of differentiation from other NBA arenas, according to team officials. It’s one piece of innovation that blends into a part of downtown Milwaukee that’s undergoing a resurgence after being slow to redevelop over the years, Feigin said.
“We wanted the arena to be architecturally different and significant but not stick out like a spaceship,” said Mike Fascitelli, a New York developer and one of the Bucks’ four co-owners. “We had a couple of designs that were even more futuristic. It was a hard balance, but I think we achieved it.”
The atrium, a 9,350-square-foot space framed by a giant glass wall, provides a large welcoming space on the arena’s east side with views to the upper levels. The curved LED screen attached to one wall provided Instagrammable moments prior to The Killers/Violent Femmes concert Sept. 4, the arena’s first ticketed event.
The ticket office next door has an open layout, something different among new arenas. There are no windows separating ticket sellers from customers, who have access to seating charts displayed on desktop computers operated by arena staff.
The setup encourages greater interaction for buying the best seats and results in better customer service. It’s one design element the Bucks adapted from United Center’s retrofit in Chicago, said Marc Farha, an executive vice president with owners representative CAA Icon.
The seating bowl is a far cry from BMO Harris Bradley Center, the Bucks’ home for 30 years, and that’s a good thing. At Fiserv Forum, 10,000 seats are situated in the lower bowl, similar to Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center. The opposite was true at Bradley Center, where a majority of seats were in the upper deck and patrons sitting in the lower bowl had to walk up a flight of stairs to reach their seats.
At the new facility, that’s not the case. Some upper-deck sections have as few as eight rows of seats, putting most fans sitting up top that much closer to the floor. The Bucks looked to Bankers Life Fieldhouse as a model to develop an intimate seating bowl with 17,500 total seats, Fascitelli said.
The premium seat mix reflects the demand in one of the NBA’s smaller markets, and for the most part, every piece of inventory is sold out, said Jamie Morningstar, the Bucks’ senior vice president of ticket sales and service.
The building has 34 traditional suites, among the fewest in the NBA. They’re designed with 12 to 18 seats depending on location and run $225,000 to $350,000 a year. The terms are seven, 10 and 12 years.
The West Bend Lofts, a loge box product named for sponsor West Bend Mutual Insurance Co., cost $80,000 to $200,000 a year with four-, six- and eight-seat combinations. The 33 lofts cover Bucks and Marquette men’s basketball and first rights to buy tickets for other events.
Fascitelli said the Bucks understated the demand for lofts and should have built more of them. Officials could add a few more lofts in future years, he said.
“There’s more of a trend for the [overall] experience than the suite experience,” Fascitelli said.
“People overbuilt those generally in the arenas. In Milwaukee, it’s a lot easier to have a small corporation buy four to six seats and get to all the games instead of having to fill 12 to 18 seats every game,” he said.
The BMO Club at event level is exclusive to about 400 people sitting in the first four rows along the sidelines and first three rows behind the baselines. The average ticket price is $250 a game on the low end for the all-inclusive package, Morningstar said.
The Mezzanine Club, situated one level above the BMO Club, serves just under 900 club seat holders paying an average of $180 a game. Those stored-value tickets carry $10 in credit for food and drink, and the 886 seats were virtually sold out in early September.
The design of both clubs includes reclaimed wood from Wisconsin forests, employing the arena development’s theme of going local and authentic.
The Bucks carved out flexible space at both ends of the arena for group sales. The club lounges at stage end can hold 180 people in one room and can be split into six rooms with 24 seats. The lounges are dynamically priced and start at $3,000 a game per group depending on the Bucks’ opponent, Morningstar said.
“One thing we missed out in the past was (the ability to sell to) large groups in one big space,” she said. “The finishes are just as nice as the suites and lofts.”
Sponsor branding is fairly subdued except for the food courts on both concourses, showcasing locals such as The Laughing Taco and Gold Rush Chicken. Levy is the food and beverage provider for the building.
The Bucks expect to sign two to three more founding partners to join BMO Harris Bank, Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, Johnson Controls and Miller Brewing Co.
The Mezzanine Club and Panorama Club are among the spaces the team expects to rebrand with seven-figure sponsorships, said Matt Pazaras, the Bucks’ senior vice president of business development and strategy.
“I wouldn’t call it minimalism, but less is more,” Feigin said. “It’s about how do you keep the building ‘clean’ and organize the assets you want to entitle. We wanted a naming-rights partner and six to eight founding partners which would really carry the load for a long period of time. It’s worked well.”
The same can be said for the arena’s artwork. Much of it pays homage to the Bucks’ 1970-71 team, winner of the franchise’s only NBA championship and led by Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor. Sports & the Arts, a firm that works with teams to incorporate memorabilia into their facilities, identified archival gems for display such as the Bucks’ championship banner, Robertson’s hand-written seasonlong stat sheet and a Kodak roll of Alcindor PR photos taken during his rookie year.
The attention to detail was “as maniacal as you can imagine,” Pazaras said. “We’re treating this arena as if it were a 750,000-square-foot house.”