OAKA OLYMPIC INDOOR HALL
- HIGHLIGHTS
During the Athens 2011 World Summer Games, Basketball was held in the Olympic Indoor Hall of the Athens Olympic Sports Center. Four (4) Courts were used within the venue; the main arena and three (3) additional courts located at the training area of the Olympic Indoor Hall.
The Olympic Indoor Hall (namely, the main arena) is a very beautiful venue that has hosted in the past many international basketball competitions; it was a real attraction for all the delegations that seemed to enjoy very much playing and attending games as also receiving their awards there.
Moreover, is a venue that very often draws big numbers of spectators and this happened during this event also (in conjunction with the Aquatics Venue and the Olympic Stadium).
The staging of all competitions (male, female, unified) “under the same roof” provided a wonderful opportunity for the teams to meet with other delegations and to everybody else involved (Families, Spectators, Technical Delegates, International and National Technical Officials, Staff and Volunteers) to have a better feeling of the event, to attend more games and to enjoy the awards ceremonies. At the same time it was a huge challenge regarding: a) the set-up of the courts, b) the design of flows for all constituent groups and c) the crowd management.
The 2 existing courts at the training area of the venue at their common use they are not used for competition purposes and for this reason there were some limitations by default. There was a need to make several modifications and to fit the overlays and equipment needed for the proper conduct of basketball games.
The 3rd court was made in a hall used for fencing training and competitions. In this case there was need to set-up the court from scratch, by using floor, backboards, bleachers and the rest of the relevant sport equipment from other venues.
The most important issue was the access to the 3 courts mentioned above. There was only one door leading to each one of them and there was very limited space for the flow of athletes, coaches, officials, families, spectators, staff, volunteers, medical personnel, media, etc.
This issue was resolved operationally: First, the 3 courts were separated with barricades, so that people were sent back to the main corridor linking the different areas of the venue and they could either go to the exit or find their way back to another court.
Second, great importance was given to the training of the staff and volunteers about how to handle ingress and egress to the courts: teams were given full priority when they were coming for their game or when they were leaving after that, the small corridors were kept “clean” as much as possible and they were “closed” when a court was “a full house”.
Third, there was an effort to put adequate signage in place, in order to facilitate people to move from one area to the other and especially between the courts 2, 3, 4 and the exit from the venue. Fourth, in case of having teams with many fans playing at courts 3 & 4, which were the smallest, the Sports Team in cooperation with the Technical Delegates moved the specific games to the other 2 courts (mainly to the main arena – court 1) that had seating capacity enough to accommodate comfortably the needs of the spectators for these games.
Last, when it was anticipated that there is an extra need, additional staff and volunteers was sent to courts 3 & 4 to assist in access monitoring and crowd management.
In relation to the design of the flows, 2 main decisions were made during the planning phase: First, to try to minimize the flows at Level 1 (upper level) of the venue. This was considered to be important because it would not be possible to monitor all areas in an 18.500 seats arena and it would be extremely hard to lead spectators and families to their designated seating areas.
Second, to use one of the main entrances at Level 0 (lower level) as the only way to go from the main arena to the courts 2, 3 & 4 and vice-versa. Also, this entrance was used from the families to go to their lounge. That way, it was possible to separate the main sports areas (Athletes and Technical Officials entrance, changing rooms and lounges, rest area and lunch area, administration offices, etc) from the spectators and families areas. Of course, this was not the case for the entrance to courts 2, 3, 4 as mentioned above. To “secure” the main sports areas there were 3 access points were only persons with the proper credentials were allowed. As for the teams going to the courts 2, 3, 4 for their games, they were escorted at all times.
In relation to the venue areas available for the operational needs, this was one of the strong points of the venue. Although the venue is used by several entities, there was enough space to comfortably cover the needs of all FAs for the conduct of this event.
Another strong point was the good relationships and the overall performance of the Venue Team. Although the team was together only for limited time, they managed to cooperate and to handle issues very effectively.
Regarding the issues, it should be noted that the venue was handed to Athens 2011 not before 20 days prior to the start of the vent. This put a lot of pressure to Venue team in order to make all the necessary preparations but it did not proved to be a major issue, neither affected the venue operations during the event.
Finally, one more issue that had to be dealt with (see below) was the lack of paid staff to lead some of the FAs within the Venue Team (please see attached venue org. chart). Some decisions had to be made: Venue Staffing responsibilities were handed to the Basketball Administration Coordinator and the coordination of the other FAs “without leader” was given directly to the Venue Operations Manager. Additional effort was needed to ensure that no gaps would appear in the operations compared to the original planning.
- VENUE MAJOR ISSUES & RECOMMENDATIONS
No / Issue Description / Recommendation
1 / Some Functional Areas were not represented in the Venue by paid staff / Venue team with dedicated FAs representatives should be in place well ahead of the event.
1