Staples Center

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

Staples Center is a multi-purpose sports arena in Downtown Los Angeles, California adjacent to the LA Live development. It is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex. Staples Center was financed privately at a cost of $375 Million and is named for the Staples office-supply company, one of the center's corporate sponsors that paid for naming rights.

History

Staples Center opened on October 17 1999, with a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert, and became a two-time winner of the Pollstar-CIC Arena of the Year award soon after. It is home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA, the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA, the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL, and the Los Angeles Avengers of the AFL. It is the only arena that is home to five professional sports franchises.

The arena is host to 250 events and nearly 4,000,000 visitors a year. Since its opening day, Staples Center has hosted the 2000 Democratic National Convention, the 2002 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the 52nd NHL All-Star game, the 2004 NBA All-Star Game, the 2004 Pac-10 Basketball Finals, the WTA Tour Championships from 2002 to 2005, the first Latin Grammy Awards in 2000, the annual Grammy Awards since 2000 with the exception of 2003, the Summer X Games indoor competitions since 2003, the UFC 60 pay per view event, as well as numerous Concerts and HBO Championship Boxing matches. In addition to hosting the attendance record setting WrestleMania 21 in 2005, Staples Center has also hosted Unforgiven 2002, Judgment Day 2004, and No Way Out 2007 as well as other World Wrestling Entertainment events.

The arena

There are a total of twelve locker and dressing rooms, including team-specific locker rooms for the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings. There are a series of meeting rooms in the arena, including the Bank of America conference area on the suite level and additional rooms in the attached, three-story office tower. There are extensive hospitality facilities, including a restaurant and club space on the suite level at one end of the arena, overlooking the arena floor.

The arena features a full-service ticket window, 1,200 television monitors throughout the facility, 23 refreshment stands spread among the arena's five concourses, as well as the Fox Sports SkyBox restaurant on the main plaza, the Royal Room on main concourse, the Arena Club and Grand Reserve Club above the premier seating level, a TeamLA store on the plaza level accessible from outside the arena, and the outdoor City View Grille. The arena also features a $2 million specialty lighting package, a $1.5 million Bose sound system, a Mitsubishi eight-sided, center-court scoreboard and videoboard, as well as a Daktronics fascia board along the upper seating level.

Staples Center seats up to 20,000 for concerts, 18,997 for basketball, and 18,118 for hockey and arena football. Two-thirds of the arena's seating, including 2,500 club seats, are in the lower bowl. There are also 160 luxury suites, including 15 event suites, on three levels between the lower and upper bowls. The arena's attendance record is held by WWE WrestleMania 21 with a crowd of 20,193 set on April 3, 2005.

Future developments

Although Staples Center is already a Los Angeles landmark, it is only a part of a much larger development by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) adjoining Staples Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center. The development, known as L.A. Live, broke ground on September 15, 2005. L.A. Live is designed to offer entertainment, retail and residential programming in the downtown Los Angeles area.

L.A. Live will feature entertainment venues, restaurants, retail commercial and residential spaces, television and radio broadcast studios, and concert spaces. It will feature a four star 1,100 room convention center headquarters hotel known as The Residences at The Ritz-Carlton, a outdoor plaza, an ESPN broadcast and restaurant facility, Regal Theatres, as well as Club Nokia, the Nokia Theatre Los Angeles, and Nokia Plaza.

Notes

Outside the arena are statues of Wayne Gretzky and Magic Johnson, although both sports legends played at the Great Western Forum, where the Kings, Lakers and Sparks previously played. (The Los Angeles Clippers previously played at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.)
In 2005, the lower bowl purple seats were reupholstered to black seats.
Staples Center was named New Major Concert Venue (2000) and Arena of the Year (2000 and 2001) by Pollstar Magazine and has been nominated each year since its 1999 opening.
Staples Center measures of total space, with a by arena floor. It stands tall.
Load-in at the arena is accommodated through a floor-level dockway. There is a marshaling area for event production, as well as a dock area designed to accommodate up to six television production vehicles.
Staples Center features an eight-sided, center-court/Ice scoreboard featuring four by Mitsubishi DiamondVision video screens and four by messageboards. In addition, the arena contains two complete television control rooms and 34 fixed camera positions.
of structural steel and of concrete were used to build Staples Center at a cost of $375 million.
In 2007, rock band Van Halen used the Staples Center as the venue for two rehearsal concerts before their Van Halen 2007-2008 Tour with original lead singer David Lee Roth.

References

External links

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 18:21:22 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation