The Arena was built to host the World Student Games & was officially opened by Her Majesty The Queen on 30th May 1991. The Arena can accommodate audiences from a theatre style 3,500 up to a 13,600 capacity making it the regions biggest capacity indoor Arena.
Since the venue opened in 1991 the Arena has averaged 122 shows a year with over 650,000 customers passing through our doors each year.
As well as hosting the worlds most legendary musical superstars & the world’s biggest sporting greats, from trophy winning Sheffield Steelers to boxing world title fights and darts heroes like Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor.
The Arena has hosted some more unusual events. From the likes of Cybermen marching through the audience at Doctor Who The Live Tour; 20 life-sized dinosaurs the largest of which the Brachiosaurus, was 36 feet tall and 56 feet from nose to tail & weighing in at 1.6 tons roaming the Arena floor in Walking With Dinosaurs; Seeing the Arena transformed into Gotham City for Batman Live; One of the most watched operatic productions in the World Madam Butterfly saw the entire production staged on walkways which crisscrossed a Japanese water garden covering the whole 100 meters of the arena floor.
