The La Trobe Sports Park Stadium, which attracts an average of over 10,000 community members to the Sports Park precinct each week for a wide variety of sport competitions, events and research, officially re-opened to full capacity this week with a new 1100-seat retractable grandstand installed within Court Hall 1.
The show court grandstand seating project commenced at the end of November last year and was officially handed over last week by stadia and arena seating supplier, Starena Group, who delivered the project.
The installation of the retractable grandstand enables the La Trobe Sports Park Stadium to host large-scale indoor community and professional sporting events that require a show court facility, without losing the functionality of the six high-ball courts that host a range of sport, active recreation, teaching and research activities.
La Trobe Sport Senior Operations Coordinator Jai Haddock said the installation of the retractable grandstand will further improve the state-of-the-art stadium’s ability to welcome the local community onto the campus as a place to socialise and stay healthy in line with La Trobe’s University City of the Future vision.
“For La Trobe Sport and the wider University, this is another piece in the puzzle for this (Sports Park) Stadium,” he said.
“It (the retractable grandstand) allows us to host both the elite and sub-elite level of competition.
“I think we do the community piece really well at the moment and obviously we are here to support students with everything that we do, but this is the last piece we are really after and it’s really exciting to have it built and ready to go.”
Haddock said that the installation of the new seating infrastructure added further evidence to the Sports Park’s credentials as a world-class precinct for teaching, research, community participation and elite sport.
“We’re (La Trobe Sport) here first and foremost for students – not just at the participation level, but also connecting with the School (of Allied Health, Human Services and Sport) and the guys operating the (Sports Performance Hub) labs at the moment,” he said.
“The court halls are pretty well equipped in that (sport research) analytics space as well, so it’s really exciting to piece together all the different arms of sport.”
The new grandstand seating will also be available for La Trobe University’s sport industry partners and Sports Park tenants to host their respective events and competitions.
“Particularly for those finals and grand finals series, I know it’s a resource they are really keen on utilising and obviously it’s a no-brainer for us to continue working in with our partners to activate this space,” Haddock said.
The new retractable show court grandstand will be officially unveiled on Monday March 18, when La Trobe University hosts the University of Melbourne at the Sports Park Stadium in the 2024 University Basketball League (UBL) season opener. Students, staff and the wider community are encouraged to join us on the day to support our Women’s and Men’s teams and officially launch the new grandstand, with more details on the event to be provided in the coming weeks.
For more information on the La Trobe Sports Park Stadium grandstand installation, please get in touch with La Trobe Sport via email - sport@latrobe.edu.au.
