Handling Crowds Will Be as Easy as 1-2-3

With the Lakers, Clippers and Kings sharing the Staples Center and as many as 250 to 300 sporting and entertainment events a year expected to be booked into the building, the logistics of scheduling each event figures to be complicated. Getting the arena set up, cleaning it afterward and preparing it for the next event figures to present an equally big headache.

But thanks to several key design provisions, Staples Center officials say they will be able to reconfigure the new arena from basketball to hockey--or vice versa--in less than 2 1/2 hours. That will facilitate scheduling doubleheaders on prime weekend dates or during the NBA and NHL playoffs, easing traffic inside the building--if not outside.

A turnaround to accommodate two events in one day can be accomplished at the Great Western Forum in less than three hours, if need be, but six to eight hours is usually needed for the process. The Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim also takes seven to eight hours, preferably overnight, to make the transition.

Many newer, multipurpose arenas--such as the CoreStates Center in Philadelphia, home to the NBA’s 76ers and NHL’s Flyers--can also perform turnarounds in slightly more than two hours. Peter Luukko, president of the CoreStates Complex, said his arena has done hockey-to-basketball transformations in 2 hours 15 minutes, and has had approximately 15 doubleheaders this year involving hockey and basketball or hockey and lacrosse. “It’s absolutely doable,” he said.

Work crews at New York’s Madison Square Garden, home of the NBA Knicks and NHL Rangers, can complete a turnaround in about three hours, but a Knick spokesman said the ideal situation is to take seven or eight hours and complete the operation overnight.

Not so at the Staples Center.

“Every design decision we’re making is with the thought of having the ability to have one event at 12 noon that’s done at 3, and by 5 o’clock have the building turned around, cleaned and ready for the evening’s event at 7:30,” said Tim Leiweke, president of the Kings and the club’s point man on the arena project. “Clearly, the Staples Center is going to be the predominant building in town, and we’re going to be very aggressive in getting every event we can.”

Lee Zeidman, vice president of operations for the Staples Center, said he is leaning toward choosing a variable riser seating system for the arena, in which sections of seats can be moved at the touch of a button. That minimizes labor and also facilitates rapid transformations. Luukko said the CoreStates Center has such a system, which provides the additional benefit of providing better sight lines for fans.

“I envision doing quite a few quick turnarounds,” Zeidman said. “The seating systems are going to be state of the art. In [the Forum] there are no buttons to push, so we have to do things manually. In the new place, everything is going to be chain- or motor-driven.”

Zeidman also said the hockey dasher boards, which must be removed at the Forum when transforming the arena configuration from hockey to basketball, will be left in place at the Staples Center, another time-saving feature. There will also be storage space at both ends of the arena and large openings for equipment to be moved in and out, instead of the single Zamboni entrance at the Forum.

“That would allow us to load basketball in and hockey out, at the same time,” he said.

Luukko, who formerly oversaw operations of the Coliseum and Sports Arena as a regional vice president for Spectacor Management Group, applauded the Clippers’ move to the Staples Center.

“I think the people of L.A. are going to absolutely enjoy the new building,” Luukko said. “They deserve it. They’re going to see the amenities and love it.

“I think it’s a very interesting move. Obviously, it’s great for the Staples Center to have another tenant.”