Cheers to Arthur and all at Guinness from Arena Seating

Arena Seating provided the tiered seating for the spectacular Guinness Arthur’s Day celebrations on 24th September, at the famous St James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin.

Entrusted with creating a concert seating system in this unique, challenging space, Arena Seating had to call on all their technical expertise to ensure an impressive temporary grandstand was safely constructed in the historic ‘Hop Store 13’ to seat 933 guests.

There had never been a gig of this scale before in the Guinness Brewery, but for one night only Kasabian, Estelle, Tom Jones and Dizzee Rascal performed live in the home of Guinness.

Famous for their award winning Guinness marketing campaigns Freud Communications conceptualised the event, which was brought to life by production company Sevens7.

Working in one of the oldest original buildings on the St James’s Gate site, they ensured headline acts took to the stage, starting a series of celebrations across Dublin (and the globe) following a precisely co-ordinated raising of glasses at exactly 17:59 to celebrate the life and legacy of Arthur Guinness.

With a number of logistical issues surrounding the old Hop Store site, the Arena Seating crew worked round the clock to install a grandstand which afforded great views for all attending. At the start of the project, Arena’s in-house CAD engineers carefully calculated the maximum loads that the suspended floor could safely support. After all, the room was originally designed for holding sacks of hops – not a grandstand holding almost 1,000 dancing rock fans!

Precise logistical planning and installation followed, to create a temporary grandstand that incorporated four double height rear access staircases, two front entry staircases and crucially a four metre wide access tunnel through the centre of the stand.

Sales Director Dave Withey said:
“This was a complex grandstand, with the pedestrian tunnel running through the scaffolding sub-structure that raised the front row of the grandstand to range in height from 1.2 to 3 metres across the front of the stand. This robust sub-structure guaranteed audience safety and was designed to give clear sight-lines over the heads of the assembled standing audience and the control platforms (also installed by Arena).

“With space at a premium in the prestigious old building, the design and construction process was meticulous. However, adapting to build in unusual spaces is something we excel at. Both our design and build team enjoyed helping create this great setting and were proud to be a part of this momentous occasion.

“It was an honour that we were able to provide temporary event seating to help make the Guinness 250 anniversary celebrations a roaring success”