The Coventry Building Society Arena is an award-winning complex situated in the heart of the UK. Maximising revenue opportunities for the exhibition and conference area, Style was commissioned to install a 10-metre-high Dorma Hüppe Variflex moveable wall, allowing the 54-metre-wide hall to be divided into two separate rooms or left as one vast, open-plan space. Delivering an excellent acoustic rating of 55dB, the partitioning wall allows concurrent events to be run undisturbed on either side.
Helping ensure the safe operation of such a large moveable wall, Style recommended the i-Track system, which uses a sequence of curves and internal track switches to allow the smooth and easy movement of the heavy panels.
The Coventry Building Society Arena (often shortened to the CBS Arena, and formerly known as the Ricoh Arena) is a first-class facility that includes a 32,609-seater stadium, conference, exhibition and meeting spaces to cater for events from as small as seven up to as many as 7,000 delegates, as well as a Hilton hotel and an expansive casino complex.
Style worked directly with the arena to increase the flexibility of the indoor arena, a pillar-free hall offering 6,000 square metres of event space.
“With nearly 25 years in operation, Style has had considerable experience delivering moveable wall solutions for halls as large as the one at the CBS Arena,” said Steve Williams, sales director for Style Midlands. “When panel heights exceed 5,000mm, weight can become an issue with regards to ease of manoeuvrability. The Dorma Hüppe i-Track will help reduce wear and tear of the tracking and carriers, significantly extending the operational life of the wall and reducing ongoing maintenance costs. For the operator, it means the days of wrestling with oversized panels is now a thing of the past. The i-Track system simply harnesses kinetic energy created by the panel movement, utilising that momentum to pass it in and out of the parking pocket. Track diverters are also used to manually program the carriers to automatically move each panel to the correct parking location.”
