The Barclays Arena was initially named the Color Line Arena. It was recently renamed from Barclaycard Arena. Before that, it was known as O2 World Hamburg. It is an arena located in the city of Hamburg, Germany. It was founded in 2002 and has the capacity of hosting 16,000 people and nearly 13, 800 sporting events. It is a part of the iconic Altona Volkspark. Other landmarks in the vicinity of the area are Volksparkstadion, a football stadium, and the Volksbank Arena in Hamburg’s western Bahrenfeld district.
Altona Volkpark sprawls at 205 hectares or 507 acres making it one of the largest urban parks of Germany’s Hamburg District of Bahrenfeld situated at the borough of Altona. People can reach Altona Park driving 3 km away from the inner circle of the city. The city also has other parks like Planten un Blomen and Alsterpark.
Large scale events like music concerts are hosted at the Barclay Arena. It sponsored a handball club HSV Hamburg and an ice hockey team Hamburg Freezers. These teams were dissolved in 2016. The arena is an architectural marvel and a celebrated icon of the modern public entertainment venue of Europe.
The length and breadth of the arena are 150 meters and 110 meters with 33 meters wide. A total of 83 million euros or 121.5 million USD were spent on the construction of the arena when it was built. The construction of the stadium was sponsored by a Finnish businessman, Harry Harkimo in collaboration with the administration of the city of Hamburg. The land on which the arena is built was sold to Harkimo at 1 Mark. It is a symbolic price in Hamburg. The administration of the city of Hamburg allotted 12 million marks that roughly equal to 6 million euros for architectural improvements.
More than 2500 concerts and public entertainment events have been hosted in the arena by world-renowned musicians, bands, actors, and artists. The venue also hosted sporting events in one of the largest arenas in Germany.
The Barclaycard Arena is now controlled by Anschutz Entertainment Group which is a brand name of the Anschutz Corporation. The corporation has been a leading player in the world of live entertainment and administering the arena successfully since the autumn of 2007. The venue holds approximately 130 events in a year and receives a footfall of around a million visitors.
The changing names of the arena
The arena was named Color Line Arena initially after a Norwegian ferry operator by the name Color Line. In 2010, its name changed to O2 World Hamburg after its events were sponsored by a Spanish company dealing in telecommunications named Telefonica. The collaboration went off in 2015 again changing the arena’s name to Barclaycard arena. Recently, the arena’s name changed to Barclay Arena.
