When you find out that rock legends Guns N’ Roses are headlining a huge concert at your local venue, it’s exciting stuff. Getting the chance to hear Slash play his signature November Rain guitar solo, and hearing Axl belt out Paradise City? What a thrill.

But if you part of the team working to make this happen, you think about the baggage a band that big brings. These boys don’t travel light, and that means a big logistical task for any facilities team. Getting the stage ready for Guns N’ Roses was the challenge faced by Floorbox partner Paco Allonso and his team who needed to facilitate the gig at Spain’s Estadio de San Mamés in Bilbao. Fortunately, they were working with the AlliTrax flooring system.

 

 

What’s the gig?

 

This world-renowned stadium is the home to Spanish footballing giants Athletic Club. If you’re building a stage on their pitch, you better do it carefully. That’s easier said than done when you’re bringing a stage that could weigh up to 700 tonnes onto the field.

Paco and his crew were tasked with protecting this million-pound sports surface and giving access to workers, vehicles and equipment. They needed to provide access for three cranes to build the stage, each with five axles or more, and weighing up to 15 tonnes. Remember, San Mamés, like most prestigious football pitches, has heating pipes just 6 inches below the surface. So, protecting this pitch is the most important factor in the build.

 

How did they do it?

 

For this job, Paco and his people used the heavyweight temporary road system AlliTrax. Check out our video and watch his workers laying down the AlliTrax – it is a big job, but these folks make it look easy. The beauty of a system like AlliTrax is that it allows the vehicles access to a place where they’d never normally be allowed because we can guarantee protection. On this kind of system, the load is spread because each panel distributes loads across a wider area than the point of contact. It doesn’t matter if the touch point is a crane tyre or the surface area of the static loading. The pitch is safe, and so are the workers.

 

Rock on!

 

As you’ll see in the video, once the floor is down, it’s all good to go. Guns N’ Roses arrived to find their fans, and the venue, ready to rock. It was an awesome gig, and Sweet Child O’ Mine still sends shivers up the spine. What a treat for the community and the San Mamés stadium team. It just goes to show that by utilising heavy duty flooring systems like AlliTrax, professional sports grounds can use their space to great effect. Safe in the knowledge their pitch is protected, clubs can explore other revenue streams by staging all kinds of big ticket events too.

European Championship football one weekend, Guns N’ Roses the next? That’s the sort of line-up that has something for everyone!

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