Lights Will Be Bright in Arena

With all the trusses raised and girders bolted down, construction of the Staples Center has shifted toward high technology.

Workmen are pulling high-bandwidth cable throughout the arena. Large black baffles hang from the ceiling in an effort to improve the acoustics. Hundreds of robotic lights will provide special effects.

The technology doesn’t come cheap. Arena executives say it has played a significant role in raising the construction costs from an original estimate of $250 million to the current $375 million.

The final price tag could exceed $400 million, sources close to the project say.

But this construction phase, while costly, could translate directly into revenue for the 20,000-seat venue. Management hopes the sophisticated equipment will attract traveling shows and television productions to an arena that needs a busy calendar to be financially viable.

“We’ve been focused on these things for a long time,” General Manager Bobby Goldwater said. “We’ve been thinking long and hard about all of these details.”

Preparations began in the design phase, when the arena sought advice from television producers.

“They were very smart to do this,” said Rob Senn, executive vice president and general manager of the Grammy Awards, which are expected to come to the Staples Center in February. “When you’re in the business of filling seats, you have a very different point of view than when you’re in the business of looking through the camera.”

Not all the considerations were high-tech. Side doors were enlarged to accommodate set changes. An elevator was modified to transport press and entertainers between the stage and stands. The arena also includes a 15,000-square-foot marshaling area so trucks can drive inside and unload a few feet from the floor.

On the technical side, those ceiling baffles--positioned to dampen echoes--will complement a $1.5-million sound system designed to combat the muddled acoustics that often plague arenas.

State-of-the-art lighting will give visiting productions--as well as the Lakers, Clippers and Kings--the capability to program light shows and beam graphics onto the floor.

Such features will help producers of everything from ice shows to the Grammy Awards to the Democratic National Convention, which comes to the Staples Center next summer.

“The design of the building is so thoughtful and so friendly to major-event television production,” Senn said. “I don’t think there is any peer in the country.”

On a smaller scale, sports fans will also benefit from attention to production values.

More than 1,200 television screens, arrayed in banks and clusters throughout the building, will show highlights and video features. The eight-sided scoreboard--what executives call a “center display”--has 13-foot video boards capable of providing high-density pictures.

Fans also get four times as many snack bars and restrooms as they had at the Forum. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Panda Express and Camacho’s will operate stands while the Fox Network will open a 10,000-square-foot sports bar on the lower level.

All of this comes to a city with no new sports venue since the Forum opened in 1967. As one marketing expert said: “It’s a wide-open field.”

The Staples Center is scheduled to hold its gala opening Oct. 16. At this point, work crews are buzzing around the site from 6 a.m. to midnight, six days a week, racing to finish on time. Goldwater said it is difficult to rush the technical work.

“As far as this building is concerned, it’s all in the details,” he said. “That’s the only way to do it right.”