Arena Seating impresses at Red Bull Air Races

The River Thames is a spectacular arena by the standards of any event but it took the expertise of event producers Innovision Events and Arena Seating to turn it into a suitable public amphitheatre for the duelling aviators competing in the London heats of the Red Bull Air Races.

The competition, now in its fourth year, sees stunt pilots perform remarkable flying feats at low level, between enormous markers at breathtaking speed with the goal of becoming Red Bull Air Race World Champion at the end of the season.

The London event was set against the backdrop of the O2 Dome, and required three temporary spectator viewing areas, built either side of the river. Temporary seating was installed at the David Beckham Academy Coach Park and O2 Car Park 4 on the south side of the river, with a third installation north of the river at Peruvian Wharf.

As well as the seating, Arena Seating supplied a 24 metre wide public staircase, 20 metres long, and provided the main big screen scaffolding support.

Arena Seating’s Project Manager Martin Clark was responsible for a build which saw over 10,000 plastic tiered tip up seats installed next-door to the O2 Arena (5,169 in the Coach Park and 4,974 in the Car Park, with an additional 50 wheelchair positions). A further 9,226 seats were built at Peruvian Wharf on the opposite bank; in all a temporary venue of nearly 20,000 capacity was installed for spectators.

“The Red Bull Air Races are growing in popularity year on year,” says Martin Clark. “The fact that this is a large scale aerial course, meant that finding sites for the best views was particularly challenging. However, with the ingenuity of Innovision and our own team we were able to offer the capacity crowd a great view of the event.”