Movable seating


Movable seating is a feature of some facilities like stadiums, often known as convertible stadiums, or moduable stadiums. It allows for the movement of parts of the grandstand to allow for a change of the playing surface shape. This allows games that use various shaped playing surfaces such as an oval field, for cricket and/or Australian rules football; or a rectangular field, for football (soccer), rugby league, rugby union, American football, and/or Canadian football; or a diamond field, for baseball; to be played in the same stadium. This is particularly useful in Australia and the United States, where various professional sports with varying field configurations are popular spectator pastimes. The process of conversion from one form to another is time consuming, depending on the stadium it can take from 8 to 80 hours. Many stadiums were built in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s to host both baseball and American football.

Stadiums with movable seating

Asia

Europe

North America

Oceania

  • Stadium Australia was the Olympic Stadium at the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics in Australia. Post-Olympics during 2001–2003, it was re-configured and movable seating was implemented allowing the stadium to transition between a rectangular or an oval playing surface.
  • Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, was completed in 1999. Features such as movable seating and a retractable roof allow for the venue to host many sports and entertainment events. It is also the first stadium in Australia to have this feature.
  • Optus Stadium in Perth, Australia, a venue built with an oval pitch for cricket and Australian rules football, has several "drop-in" movable seating areas positioned to "fill in" much of the sides of the pitch when the venue is used for rectangular-field sports.

Proposed stadiums with movable seating

  • The Australian Capital Territory's minister for sport has proposed a 'super stadium' with removable seating as a replacement for the ageing Canberra Stadium.
  • In 1964, a stadium complex was proposed in San Diego by Barron Hilton in which grandstands would float on water between football and baseball fields. The enormous price tag ensured the complex was never built.

Former stadiums with movable seating