My sentiments exactly. It'll be nothing like the MEN,sheffield etc which makes me stand by my earlier post of a white elephant.
For a start,the location is SO wrong IMO.I mean,who chose it??
Councillor Mad Jack McMad of Little London???

It's knowhere near the train station,motor way etc.Imagine what the traffic will be like at rush hour on a Friday up there.

There have been some comments that our fair city is going to be classed as a second class provincial city but I reckon it already is.

It's more accessible than headingley which deals with the same amount of people on a regular basis. We have been overdue an arena for a long time, there is no perfect place to put one so I will just be happy that I don't have to drive to Sheffield or Manchester.

Looking at it I think we should erase the word "arena" and substitute with "concert venue", which isn't a bad thing, a 12/14000 seater concert venue specifically designed with music or theatre performance in mind should be superb rather than the botched up "one size fits all" you get at Sheffield or Newcastle where if you're unfortunate enough to have a ticket at the far end of the arena then you might as well be watching it at home on a tv set.

For the person who asked how far away you'd be on the top tier - probably not as far away as you would be in a "true" arena and don't forget, you're looking at a schematic there, think about the Millenium stadium in Cardiff and how the tiers work there, the top section is no further away from the pitch than the bottom one.

PS - one other point I forgot, I hate the situation you get at arenas where the floor area is simply rows and rows of seating with no tiers at all, meaning that you end up sitting 30 rows back staring at the back of the head of the person in front, so everyone stands up and then only the tallest see, so they all move to the front and you have the same situation that I used to enjoy at the gigs at the Leeds Poly Refectory gigs - except that we paid a couple of quid for the Poly gigs and you've probably paid £30 or £40 for the arena gig - and you still can't see a thing

Agreed, I went to see CBeebies live at sheffield arena (for the young un of course) and they moved the stage up to the very end of the floor space where the stand started and put a backdrop behing the stage so you couldnt see anymore of the arena (probably only due to numbers), after see some concerts there it made for a much better venue this way.

I went to see The Who at Sheffield with four others, when we got there to collect the tickets they had split us into three sat on the first tier up virtually on top of the stage and two sat right at the back also on the first tier up.

Luckily I snaffled one of the seats right next to the stage and it was as if we were actually stood on stage right next to Pete Townsend

The two who were at the other end couldn't see a thing and to make it worse the lad who had used his credit card to pay for the tickets was one of those two, he was not a happy bunny when we all met again later

i agree, i understand most of the arenas in the UK lose money, many of them seem to try and house made up / american sports - make it a specialist music venue.

You should have waited for Hi5! to tour. The blond is very pretty and the Animal song is a belter.

im still not convinced by the design. I cnat see this amphitheater being used for boxing or wrestling agian limiting its appeal as a world class venue

Who's talking about a "world class" venue though ?

I doubt very much whether in the great scheme of things anyone speaks of Sheffield or Newcastle as having "world class" concert venues, what matters for music fans is a venue that is music specific with a large capacity.

What is clear is that some research has gone into this - Leeds will be competing directly with Sheffield and possibly Manchester, in terms of capacity the venue will be sufficient to attract the sort of bands who currently play both of those venues but it will have its unique selling point over both of those in that its music specific both acoustically and for audience comfort - ie you're not sat at the back of a large warehouse arena three tiers up and 150 yards away from the action.

sheffield city hall is pefect.great stage,great sound and you can see from anywhere

Capacity ?

Think the design looks brilliant. We've needed one of these things for quite some time now, it's embarrasing. We should make it hold at least 25K.

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