How Coronavirus will change the stadium The structural and behavioral changes we will have to get used to
There are basically two categories of football fans: those who go to the stadium and those who prefer to watch a game from a screen. Those who are part of the first group know that the stadium, understood as a structure, is a fundamental part of the magic of the sporting event, and the crowd that fills it englobs the spectator in a bond with the strangers around us. And it is precisely the involvement, the choral atmosphere, the filling presence of the crowd inside the stadium that leads a child to say "I want to go there again". But for everyone, especially for those who have just tasted this experience, the biggest disappointment is coming.
In fact, the coronavirus that forced businesses and restaurants to apply metric distances between consumers will not spare the stadiums that welcome thousands of spectators every weekend. If the training centers are not a problem because they are kept off-limits, the stadium is instead a more complicated question: therefore no more stadium experience and many greetings to the community sense if not for the big stadiums, for which good results have been found solutions.
The universe of furniture will enter the world of football even more with the online management of pre-match activities and, therefore, here is the boom in tickets and electronic documentation; moreover, when we talk about the importance of large spaces, reference is also made to screening activities: more spatial width also corresponds to better traffic flow for people and, from this, facial recognition operations will also benefit, given that must remove the mask using plexiglass barriers for a quick check-in. But in all this it is understood that the number of spectators at the stadium will have to decrease.
As witnessed by architect Mark Fenwick at Corriere della Sera, "the reduction of capacity to increase the space between spectators and the use of no-touch technology" must be the new mantra for the architecture of the stadium of the future. Sold out scenes and box office queues must look like photographs of the past, at least for next season. Capacity is and will be for a long time the key concept for the rethinking of stadiums, whose philosophy will change from "mass hospitality" to "essential reduction". The Juventus Stadium, in this sense, is one of the best structures. And so also the next cranes in action in Milan, Cagliari and Florence (cities committed to renovating the plants) will work for a reduced capacity, instead of choosing to increase the cheering space. Furthermore, it was said that fans at the stadium will be asked to remain seated and not get up - in the face of the Yellow Wall in Dortmund - explaining that this is one of the fundamental methods to avoid filling the safety distances and creating gatherings. But it is not a trivial matter: for those who live the stadium experience, sitting is not such an underlying request.
