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Average Utilization Rate of Tier 1, 2, and 3 Indoor Arenas (V2)
Key Takeaways
- Some indoor arenas with a seating capacity of 20,000 and above include The Greensboro Coliseum, United Center, FLA Live Arena, and KFC Yum! Center in the United States and The O2 Arena and AO Arena in the UK.
- Some indoor arenas with a seating capacity of 10,000 to 19,999 include the T-Mobile Center and TD Garden in the US, OVO Arena Wembley and Utilita Arena Birmingham in the UK, and Coca-Cola Arena and Etihad Arena in Dubai.
- Some indoor arenas with a seating capacity below 10,000 include the Ford Wyoming Center, Savannah Civic Center, and the Enmarket Arena in the US, Derby Arena and Westpoint Arena in the UK, and Festival Arena in Dubai.
- The average utilization rates of indoor arenas have been triangulated to be 65.1 days for tier one arenas (20,000 and above seating capacity,) 42.5 days for tier two arenas (seating capacity of 10,000 - 19,999,) and 25.5 days for tier three arenas (seating capacity below 10,000.)
Introduction
This research has triangulated the average utilization rate of Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 indoor arenas in the United Kingdom, the US, and Dubai. The average utilization rates of indoor arenas have been triangulated to be 65.5 days for tier-one arenas, 42.3 days for tier-two arenas, and 25.5 days for tier-three arenas. Some of these indoor arenas are home to NBA, NHL, or WNBA franchises, and they have more sporting events than other indoor arenas with no sporting tenant. We have counted the events listed on the arena website as upcoming events. Since all the arenas don’t have events listed until August 2024, we have provided all the events listed from July 2023 to the last event listed. Therefore, the average utilization rate may not reflect events for the whole year.
The calculations do not include build-up and build-down times since they do not seem significant enough to change the total number of days. In addition, most of the two-day or three-day events in the arenas in this project are films/movie showings with no significant setup times. Below are our findings and an explanation of our research strategy.
Average Utilization Rates of Indoor Arenas
Tier One
- Some indoor arenas with a seating capacity of 20,000 and above include The Greensboro Coliseum, United Center, FLA Live Arena, and KFC Yum! Center in the United States and The O2 Arena and AO Arena in the UK.
- The seating capacity for each of these tier 1 arenas is outlined below:
- United Center: 23,500.
- The Greensboro Coliseum: over 22,000.
- KFC Yum! Center: over 22,000.
- AO Arena: 21,000.
- FLA Live Arena: 20,000.
- The O2 Arena: 20,000.
- Below are the number of events hosted in tier 1 arenas and the total number of days the arenas will be used for:
- From July 27, 2023, to April 19, 2024, the Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina will host 28 events for a total of 38 days.
- United Center will host 78 events for a total of 86 days from July 28, 2023, to April 14, 2024.
- From August 4, 2023, to April 16, 2024, there will be 53 events at the FLA Live Arena for a total of 58 days.
- The KFC Yum! Center will host 15 events from August 21, 2023, to January 7, 2024, for a total of 16 days.
- The O2 Arena will be host to 46 events for a total of 100 days from July 2023 to May 2024.
- There will be over 50 events at the AO Arena for a total of 93 days from September 2023 to August 2024.
- Therefore, the Average Utilization Rate of Tier 1 Arenas will be 38+86+58+16+100+93 / 6 =65.1 days.
Tier Two
- Some indoor arenas with a seating capacity of 10,000 to 19,999 include the T-Mobile Center and TD Garden in the US, OVO Arena Wembley and Utilita Arena Birmingham in the UK, and Coca-Cola Arena and Etihad Arena in Dubai.
- The seating capacities for each of these tier 2 arenas are outlined below:
- TD Garden: 19,580.
- T-Mobile Center: 18,500.
- Etihad Arena: 18,000.
- Coca Cola Arena: 17,000.
- Utilita Arena Birmingham: 15,800.
- OVO Arena Wembley: 12,500.
- Below are the number of events hosted in tier 2 arenas and the total number of days the arenas will be used for:
- The T-Mobile Center will host 28 events from July 27, 2023, to March 23, 2024, for a total of 37 days.
- From July 30, 2023, to April 16, 2024, there will be 82 events for a total of 85 days at the TD Garden. Most of these will be home games for the Boston Bruins, an ice hockey team.
- From August 11, 2023, to May 2024, the AVO Wembley Arena will host 45 events for a total of 47 days.
- There will be 34 events at the Utilita Arena Birmingham from July 28, 2023, to August 9, 2024, for a total of 55 days.
- The Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai will host 15 events from August 26, 2023, to January 13, 2024, for a total of 16 days.
- The Etihad Arena in Dubai will be host to five events from September 1, 2023, to October 22, 2023, for a total of 15 days.
- Therefore, the Average Utilization Rate of Tier 2 Arenas will be 37+85+47+55+16+15 / 6 = 42.5 days.
Tier Three
- Some indoor arenas with a seating capacity below 10,000 include the Ford Wyoming Center, Savannah Civic Center, and the Enmarket Arena in the US, Derby Arena and Westpoint Arena in the UK, and Festival Arena in Dubai.
- The seating capacities for each of these tier-three arenas are outlined below:
- Savannah Civic Center: 9,600.
- The Enmarket Arena: 9,500.
- Ford Wyoming Center: 8,000.
- Festival Arena: 8,000.
- Westpoint Arena: 7,500.
- Derby Arena: 5,000.
- Below are the number of events hosted in tier 3 arenas and the total number of days the arenas will be used for:
- The Ford Wyoming Center will host 20 events from August 4, 2023, to April 1, 2024, for a total of 35 days.
- There will be 26 events at the Savannah Civic Center from July 29, 2023, to February 22, 2024, for a total of 26 days.
- There will be 13 events at the Enmarket Arena from July 30, 2023, to December 7, 2023, for a total of 17 days.
- Derby Arena will host 11 events from September 22, 2023, to March 24, 2024, for a total of 32 days.
- Westpoint Arena will be host to 15 events for a total of 36 days from August 4, 2023, to December 20, 2023.
- Dubai's Festival Arena will host seven events from September 7, 2023, to December 11, 2023, for a total of seven days.
- Therefore, the Average Utilization Rate of Tier 2 Arenas will be 35+26+17+32+36+7 / 6 = 25.5 days.
Research Strategy
To provide the requested information, the research team first searched for precompiled lists of indoor arenas in the US, the UK, and Dubai. We searched through sources such as Statista, Awesome Events, Newcastle World, Rlist, etc. These sources rank the indoor arenas according to capacity.
Next, we searched through the official websites of these indoor arenas to verify their seating capacities and leverage their published event schedule to count the number of days the arena will be used for. We also used other third-party sources, such as Arena Capacity, Festival Hire, Ennui Magazine, Verge Campus, etc, to corroborate our findings and to provide other information relevant to this project.
The Greensboro Coliseum Complex in Greensboro, NC, has 14 different event venues, with the Greensboro Coliseum being among them. Since the events listed on the website take place in different venues in the complex, we used the filter to narrow down to events happening in the 22,000-seater indoor arena. This is also the case for many of the other indoor arenas since they have events happening in other smaller venues within the arena.
Some of these indoor arenas are home to NBA, NHL, or WNBA franchises, and they have more sporting events than other indoor
arenas with no sporting tenant. We have counted the events listed on the arena website as upcoming events. Since all the arenas don’t have events listed until August 2024, we have provided all the events listed from July 2023 to the last event listed.
Multiple events happening in one day are counted as a single day.
Since there are no tier-one indoor arenas in Dubai and only two arenas with a capacity of over 20,000 in the UK, we have used four tier-one arenas from the US for this triangulation. Since we could only find one tier three arena in Dubai, we have used three arenas from the US and two from the UK. Arenas in Dubai do not host a lot of events compared to arenas in the UK and the US.
There is no information in the public domain on how long it takes to set up a 2-day, 3-day, or even 5-day event. However, some sources mention that it takes anywhere between a few hours to 12 hours to set up a concert stage. Since most of the concerts to be held in these arenas feature seasoned entertainers and are not stadium tours, their setup takes less than 12 hours. Therefore, we have not included the build-up and build down times since they do not seem significant enough to change the total number of days. In addition, most of the two-day or three-day events in the arenas in this project are films/movie showings with no significant setup times.
Some of the sources we have used are older than 24 months since they provide information not available in more recent sources.