Big investments will be needed to attract major events to the Olympic stadium

Building a new roof over Montreal's Olympic Stadium won't be enough to turn it into a popular venue for internationally renowned artists and top-level sports teams, experts warn. Therefore, they expect other huge investments in the coming years to restore the image of this 1970s building.

Last Monday's announcement of an $870 million government investment in the stadium to install a new fixed suspension roof and replace its technical ring was greeted with a shower of praise on the political scene. , the Coalition Avenir represents a rare opportunity for consensus between Quebec's elected officials and opposition parties.

To cover this huge bill, which is far less than the two billion dollars estimated to demolish the massive building, the Legault government will take advantage of the many business opportunities that should open up in this facility at the end of this massive project, which will last until 2028.

Therefore, the number of events held annually at the Olympic Stadium is expected to increase from about thirty to about a hundred in the long term. The site's managers hope to attract particularly large sporting events, as well as tours by international stars such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, as well as exhibitions and conferences. Annual paying visitors to the stadium should double to over two million.

“We are a commercial company, so we will develop our partnerships to fill the stadium with major sports, special and cultural events during the years of operation,” said the minister last Monday. Tourism, Caroline Proulx, at a press conference.

Not a panacea

Building a new roof for the Olympic Stadium doesn't immediately put it on the same footing as some of the country's biggest venues, which host major sporting events and pop stars. Built in the mid-1980s, the Rogers Center in downtown Toronto has a retractable roof that increases the capacity to host a variety of sporting events. The stadium, which has a capacity of 55,000 people – the same number as the Olympic Stadium in Montreal – is the target of several hundreds of millions of dollars in renovations. To make them more convenient and attractive for fans of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. New sections premium It is also organized to accommodate the happy spectators in the stadium.

Vancouver's BC Place stadium could host the 2024 Gray Cup final as well as the 2026 FIFA World Cup, enough to make Montreal's Olympic Stadium jealous. However, even here this stadium has undergone major renovations, including the installation of a retractable roof in 2011, new, wider seats, private suites and new transparent glass doors. at the entrance to the building.

In this context, to attract major sporting events to Montreal's Olympic stadium, “it will not be enough to change the roof of the stadium,” says Moshe Lander, professor of sports economics at Concordia University. . “The seats need to be changed, the flooring needs to be changed, the insulation needs to be improved; everything needs to be changed,” says the professor. And again, he doubts he could convince a professional sports team to become a “tenant” for the stadium, especially given its geographic location. According to him, modern stadiums are found in the central areas of megacities.

In other words, he would get a completely new stadium built in the design of the 21st century^e Not the 20th century^e century,” Mr. Lander continued, making no secret of his support for a clean and simple demolition of the stadium.

“Unmanned” acoustics

The Montreal Olympic Stadium is to make a huge investment to improve the acoustics between the concrete walls, which have been criticized for years. Between Madonna's 1993 show AC / DC in 2015 and then Metallica's two shows last summer, there was repeated criticism from the audience regarding the many sound comments during these performances.

“We can always improve the sound, but it's difficult,” said Professor Thomas Dupont, a member of the acoustics research group at École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) in Montreal, in an interview. “We need absorbent materials inside the stadium” to limit the “huge reverberation” inside the stadium, which continues to reverberate the same note for several seconds after the musician has played, which may require significant “investment”. expert.

Thomas DuPont also says that improving the stadium's acoustics should help preserve the “audience” of spectators. Because, he noted, performance halls usually turn up the volume when the acoustics are of poor quality. “The more terrible the acoustics of the place, the louder the sound engineers are,” says Mr. DuPont. However, these installations do not pose a threat to spectators, not to mention the headaches they cause to their neighbors.

For his part, Romain Dumoulin, an acoustics consultant at Soft dB, noted that the quality of sound in a large space like Montreal's Olympic Stadium “depends both on the quality of the sound systems and the acoustics.” provided with big names coming to perform in the building. “The role of acoustics in such a space is to limit damage so that the sound systems are as efficient as possible,” continues the expert, adding that the renovation of the stadium roof “must be done to the ceiling to allow for acoustic installation” as well as to improve the audience's auditory experience elsewhere in the Stadium by limiting the duration of reverberation. installation of “absorbent surfaces”. “It's a big budget,” warns the expert, who also emphasizes the importance of improving the “insulation” of the stadium.

Thomas DuPont also hopes that the issue of acoustics will be taken into account early in the design and construction process of the new stadium roof. “The more we solve the problem of sound and acoustics at a higher level, the more effective it will be,” noted the expert, while insisting on the importance of involving the neighborhood residents in the process to find ways to avoid them. The shows at the Olympic Stadium at the end of this project may cause inconvenience.

“If we want to put absorbent materials inside the roof, we have to think about it quickly, because we still have to hang additional things,” says Romain Dumoulin. Everything can be done at once. »

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