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Venues around the world are showing their versatility in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, as more and more transform into emergency field hospitals and others start serving as drive-through testing centres.
As the UK government looks to ramp up its coronavirus testing capacity, major venues around the country are transforming into testing centres.
The SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is among such venues. Tests will be administered to NHS workers via a drive-through system in the car park of the 11,000-capacity arena.
Other sports and event stadia in the UK, including the Cardiff City Stadium in Wales and Edgbaston Stadium in Warwickshire, England, are also serving as similar centres.
The news comes as more venues in the UK double as field hospitals. The flagship Nightingale Hospital at the ExCel Centre in London opened its doors on 3 April, with the ability to hold up to 4,000 patients.
Similar hospitals are planned at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (2,000 beds), Manchester Central (1,000 beds), Glasgow’s Scottish Events Campus (1,000 beds) and the Harrogate Convention Centre (500 beds).
In Spain, Madrid’s Ifema – a 2.9 million m² conference and exhibition centre – transformed into the country’s biggest hospital in just 18 hours. Since opening on 23 March, 939 patients have been admitted to the emergency hospital.
“Music and shows form an integral part of Ifema, and we will return very soon to share these moments”
“We have transformed our space to offer the best of Ifema – our commitment and solidarity,” states the venue’s general manager, Eduardo López-Puertas.
“Music and shows form an integral part of Ifema, and we will return very soon to share these moments,” adds López-Puertas. “When it can, music will return stronger, sweeter and more immense than before. Meanwhile, we continue to do what we have to do.”
The first coronavirus patients arrived at New York’s 170,000m² Javits Convention Center last week, with the space set to hold up to 1,700 beds by the end of this week. The transformation of a similar convention centre in Detroit – the TCF Center (67,200 m²) – began today (7 April).
The Miami-Dade fairgrounds, which host the annual County Youth Fair and Exposition Inc., has been serving as a 250-bed field hospital since the end of last month, with another part of the grounds being used as a food distribution centre.
In Brazil, the Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo is one of a number of football stadiums – including the 78,838-seat Maracanã of reigning champions Flamengo – to be turned into a temporary hospital, with room for 200 beds. Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones are among artists who have performed at the Pacaembu Stadium.
In Germany, event production giant PRG is helping to set up a hospital at the Berlin Expo Center, due to open later this month. PRG is among a number of production companies directing its skills and resources to aid the medical sector during the coronavirus crisis.
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The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC), the Glasgow entertainment and conference complex that includes the SSE Hydro arena, has been rebranded the Scottish Event Campus (SEC).
The news – announced last night at the SE(C)C’s annual Burns Night dinner at the V&A in London – reflects the evolution of the site, established in 1985, from an exhibition centre to one that includes a significant proportion of live entertainment. The SECC added the 3,000-cap. Armadillo (Clyde Auditorium) venue in 1997, followed by the AEG Live-operated SSE Hydro (13,000-cap.) in 2013.
SEC chief executive Peter Duthie (pictured) explains: “The decision and announcement comes at a time when the company has seen changes in the nature of the business it now operates in. The name Scottish Event Campus better describes the site, is more representative of what we do and reflects a vision for the future. [O]ur three buildings will be known as The SSE Hydro, SEC Armadillo and the original building, the SEC Centre.
“We believe that this is the perfect time for a revamp of our brand, building on the success of the business to date. Historically, we have found that many people don’t necessarily realise that all of our buildings are part of the SECC.
“The name Scottish Event Campus better describes the site, is more representative of what we do and reflects a vision for the future”
“We also want to showcase that the SEC is able to stage large-scale events, capitalising on the huge success of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and, more recently, the Ignition Festival of Motoring – both great examples of utilisation of all areas of our campus, internally and externally.
“It is important to add that the new name still retains a clear reference to its origins, maintaining a connection to the excellent reputation the venue has built up in each of the market sectors – conferences, exhibitions and live entertainment – in which we operated as SECC.”
Major shows at The SSE Hydro last year included sold-out performances by Adele and Justin Bieber.
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