12,000 seat UFC 112 arena rises, temporarily

Almost there

Video taken inside the arena on Tuesday, four days before the fights:

Lee Charteris has been preparing for Saturday’s UFC 112 since early December. Charteris is not a fighter, but rather is director of operations for the event organisers, Flash. The structures that he and the army of 300 staff and sub-contractors he commands built for the Aerosmith and Beyoncé concerts during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last year were impressive enough.

I thought we had pushed the boat out. But we have gone one this time. This is the biggest thing I have ever built.

With no suitable arena at their disposal in the capital, UFC’s international development team and Flash took matters into their own hands.

We have tried to create within that space what will be the crucible, this big, high-walled amphitheatre that focuses down on the fighters. We obviously provide grandstand seating at a lot of concerts, but this is different in that it’s four large grandstands … with even bigger structures behind them which house the video screens that will be showing the live fights.

A structure above the Octagon has been built to support the 24 metric tonnes of suspended audio and visual equipment needed to ensure both the spectators on hand and the millions expected to watch on pay-per-view television around the world will not be disappointed.

There will be more audio for UFC than the Aerosmith concert, Mr Charteris said. It is bone-crushing.

The 50th truckload of scaffolding was driven onto the site on Thursday as staff continued to work from dawn until dusk to ensure the venue would be ready to hand over to the UFC’s international team, which arrived last weekend from the UK.

Marshall Zelaznik, the managing director of UFC international development, is expecting a stressful but rewarding week as he oversees final preparations for one of the biggest TV productions for the sporting world.

The structure will be dismantled after the fights.

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