First Direct Arena, Leeds

Leeds City Council developed a new arena for concerts and events in the city, named First Direct Arena. Thinking Space provided technical furniture for two control room area, providing desk solutions tailored to meet the needs each completely different environment.

Leeds had been the largest city in the UK without its own venue to hold concerts and sporting events.  In response to requests by residents, and with a widespread and public “Leeds needs an arena” campaign, which even had local artists the Kaiser Chiefs endorsing it, the arena commenced construction in February 2011. Developed by Leeds City Council and completed in May 2013, First Direct Arena has a 13,500 capacity, with an expected revenue of £25 million a year for the city’s’ economy. It has now been officially named as the First Direct Arena, after the internet bank that sponsors the venue.

Thinking Space were deployed by facilities management contractor OCS to design and install control room furniture and media wall for the newly refurbished CCTV control room. A bespoke three person control console with technical and user storage, and a combined media wall and technical storage (racking) unit were manufactured and installed.

The first control room is a central facility providing 24/7 site wide security and safety monitoring.  The L-shaped configuration gives two comfortable operator positions.  The second control room, is an event specific security and safety management facility. In the unusually shaped room, Thinking Space was tasked with designing a console which followed the shape of the room.  The console was then mounted onto a raised dais in order to increase viewing angles for operators.  The design of the console also included the positioning of temporary and permanently fixed equipment. Special controlled lighting was installed within the room as part of the overall project, ensuring that no light escaped from the room whilst events are taking place. Thinking Space, as the official distributer of Novus MoreSpace desk accessories, supplied Novus Corona 2 LED lamps with dimmable task lighting for operators to use when the lighting in the room needs to be controlled.