After breaking ground at the turn of the century, Chesapeake Energy Arena opened its doors to the public in 2002.
The 586,000-square foot arena is currently home to the NBA Oklahoma City Thunder and hosts numerous events throughout the year including concerts and other sporting events like NCAA Basketball.
The Chesapeake Energy Arena has received a reputation as being one of the loudest arenas in the NBA due to their fan base and rise as an NBA powerhouse by reaching the finals vs. the Miami Heat in 2012. The first game of this match-up created an arena where fans created a noise level of 109 decibels or the equivalent of a live rock music concert.
When your fans can get that loud (and probably even louder), you want to make sure the sound quality in your arena is perfect.
Chicago Flyhouse installed nearly 88,000 square feet of an acoustical baffle system on the ceiling of the arena that is made up of 2,100 tons of steel. The CMA Acoustical Baffles used for the project were 2” thick with a 1.5# density. Flyhouse custom-engineered brackets were fabricated in the shop to connect the baffles to the ceiling trusses and beams.
Routinely acoustical baffling panels are fully assembled, and shipped directly to an installation location, this project required panels to be assembled on-site due to the panels overall size not being standard.
The perimeter of the bowl also required vertical acoustic panels to be installed. The 9,600 square feet of these panels were installed edge-to-edge with the bottom edge of the panels being retained at the wall with perforated angle iron.
The installation of both sets of panels required the use of a 135’ and 150’ boom lift to reach the areas where the panels would hang. There were a few areas in which the lifts were unable to access requiring a custom-built Flyhouse temporary access solution to be used in reaching areas where the lift couldn’t.
With no unexpected delays throughout the project, Flyhouse worked around previously scheduled events to complete the installation by the deadline so fans could continue to enjoy the arena.
