Arena Seating helps Ricky Hatton smash boxing’s outdoor audience record

When Ricky Hatton staged his successful comeback fight at City of Manchester Stadium, Arena Seating was asked to install a large amount of temporary seating on the pitch area of Manchester City’s state of the art football ground. At 55,000 capacity the fight was billed as the largest outdoor crowd to watch a boxing match in the UK, beating the previous British best of 42,000.

The company installed over 12,000 tip-up spectator seats, plus 450 luxury “Samsonite” seats for the VIPs. The promoter SJM was responsible for promoting the event and drew on Arena Seating’s expertise in the sports and boxing field to ensure the temporary seating was installed to give fans the best possible view.

“This was a really important project for Arena Seating,” says David Withey, Arena Seating’s Sales Director. “Boxing has been a major part of our business in the last three or four years, with the success of Ricky Hatton and Joe CaIzaghe, and it was a pleasure to be able to work with SJM and share our experience with them.”

As ever, the build and de-rig schedules were tight and there was little time between the installation of essential facilities like the pitch cover and doors opening. Arena’s teams set up and demounted the seating with their well-rehearsed speed and efficiency, so the only thing that kept organisers on the edge of their seats was the activities in the ring.