Building Flexibility: StageRight’s Telescopic Audience Risers at IG Arena
Building Flexibility: StageRight’s Telescopic Audience Risers at IG Arena
September 3rd, 2025
When the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium began its transformation into the new IG Arena, the vision wasn’t simply to replace an aging facility; it was to create a world-class venue capable of hosting premier sporting events, international concerts, and large-scale entertainment experiences. Designed with flexibility, capacity, and audience comfort at the forefront, IG Arena now stands as a centerpiece within the green expanse of Meijo Park, framed by striking architectural elements led by Kengo Kuma and Associates. Every design decision, from the bold exterior lines to the advanced telescopic audience riser systems inside, reflects a commitment to making IG Arena a global benchmark for versatility, performance, and fan engagement.
Designing IG Arena: Overcoming Challenges with Telescopic Audience Risers
One of the most unique challenges in bringing IG Arena to life was designing an audience seating system that could meet the building’s ambitious flexibility goals. Because of the arena’s compact footprint and the surrounding architecture, seating needed to extend over a nine-foot span of open space before the first row could even begin, without sacrificing stability or sightlines. At the same time, the arena had to accommodate more than 17,000 spectators for major events, making efficient, reliable deployment critical to the building’s success. Balancing structural demands, aesthetic expectations, and audience comfort required creative engineering solutions built specifically for modern, multi-use facilities.
Why IG Arena Chose StageRight for Custom Arena Audience Seating
To meet these demanding specifications, IG Arena turned to StageRight, a company with decades of experience delivering advanced arena audience platforms for major venues across the world. Known for their work on high-profile projects like the Kia Center in Orlando and Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, StageRight specializes in designing and manufacturing telescopic seating systems that combine strength, precision, and flexibility. Their proven track record made them the ideal partner, even across international boundaries, to engineer a solution that could meet the IG Arena’s unique requirements while maintaining the high standards expected for a world-class facility.
Engineering Dual Telescopic Audience Risers for Maximum Flexibility
StageRight, in collaboration with Kotobuki, delivered a custom dual telescopic seating system engineered to meet IG Arena’s unique spatial challenges. The design was groundbreaking: a system that extends nine feet from the storage wall before deploying the first row of seating. This innovation ensures full structural support without additional floor reinforcement, preserving both guest safety and the arena’s clean architectural lines. Once extended, the dual risers unfold into a fully integrated seating platform, offering exceptional strength and stability.
Each platform is fitted with Kotobuki’s premium arena seating, designed for comfort and durability to elevate the spectator experience. By combining Kotobuki’s expertise in event seating with StageRight’s engineering ingenuity, the solution maximized floor space while maintaining the venue’s architectural vision, crowd capacity, and operational efficiency.
Delivering and Installing 32 Telescopic Audience Seating Systems Overseas
In total, 32 telescopic seating sections were manufactured at StageRight’s U.S. facility and shipped overseas, many fully assembled, to the IG Arena site in Japan. Managing a project of this scale across international lines required careful planning, precision engineering, and a deep understanding of the demands of arena operations.
StageRight’s experienced installation team worked closely with local crews to ensure each unit was properly unwrapped, aligned, and integrated into the building’s infrastructure. Their hands-on involvement from production through final installation helped ensure that the IG Arena seating system met both the technical specifications and the performance expectations of a premier global venue.
As IG Arena prepares to host everything from international badminton and wrestling competitions to basketball games, concerts, and community events, the need for a reliable and adaptable seating solution has never been greater. StageRight’s advanced dual telescopic platforms, along with 100 telescopic sections, will serve as the backbone of the arena’s transformation capabilities, allowing seamless conversions between sporting and entertainment layouts. Engineered for maximum stability and durability, these telescopic audience risers deliver concrete-like strength underfoot, ensuring every patron feels secure while enjoying world-class events. For facility managers, this system provides confidence that their venue meets the highest global standards for safety, performance, and versatility.
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