New And Improved Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse Ready To Rock The Rock Hall Ceremony

The 2019 renovation of Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse opened the doors to connect the city’s largest arena with the city’s most well-known museum as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame plans its 2021 Induction Ceremony on Oct. 30 inside the arena. 

The multi-year $185 million overhaul of the arena made hosting these types of events a possibility. Now, it becomes a reality. “The arena is one of the tops in the country having undergone a recent renovation,” says Greg Harris, president & CEO Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. “We love the old place (Public Auditorium), but the new arena brings so many possibilities and a far more comfortable experience for artists to perform and for production. It really checked all the boxes.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame held its induction ceremony in Cleveland just one time in the hall’s first 17 years, but in 2009 they brought it back and hosted it at the historic Public Auditorium, a venue that welcomed everything from circuses to The Beatles. Every three years the induction ceremony returns to Cleveland and the auditorium. “It had a great feel and a great sense of history that we loved, but it was also a venue where you had to come in and literally build everything from scratch,” Harris says. That meant hiring engineers to stress test the roof for lighting and logistical steps, such as load-in, that made the venue a challenge. Plus, the size was limiting. 

After the renovation of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, which Harris says, “really put it over the top,” the Hall now has an expansive, modern venue to spread out, welcome twice the number of attendees and remove much of the logistical hurdles involved. And when it comes to making the hall feel at home in the home of the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers, Harris isn’t worried at all.

“With the technology throughout the building, we will be able to brand the entire arena as if you are walking into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” he says. “Outside the building will be lit to match our branding and colors, as will all the boards in the building. The graphics, the photos, the film footage we are using, all of those things will be used to connect the venue night with the museum in a way that has never been done before.” 

The venue effectively has no static signage, allowing the theme of the venue to change with the event. The updated arena includes a mixture of distinctive technology features, including a first-of-its-kind Power Portal, a fully immersive LED video and audio tunnel 13 feet high with more than 24 million pixels in 2,200 square feet of direct-view LED. The 4K video and sound system runs the length of the 39-foot-long tunnel to allow the Hall to create an entire program just for this area. 

The redone North Atrium features over 77,000 square feet of brushed aluminum to form a winding curtain wall. With over 1,100 color combinations of light directed onto it, the wall can be lit in the colors and branding of the Hall. On the main-level concourse, what the arena calls The Canyon includes over 8.3 million pixels for video and graphics. Outside, The Totem, a double-sided video board with three stacked screens totaling 75 feet in height, offers a chance for Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse to give a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame feel even before fans enter the venue. And once inside the seating bowl, a four-sided, center-hung scoreboard and LED ring with more than 11,680 square feet of displays can immerse visitors. 

“We have become one of the most technologically advanced venues in the world from digitization,” says Len Komoroski, CEO of Cleveland Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. “It has given us the ability to morph the building based on the event. If it is the NCAA Women’s Final Four in 2024 or the NBA All-Star Game in February or (the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony), they will have their own look and feel.” 

Digitization isn’t the only calling card of the new renovation. Space plays a key component too. Komoroski says the 1994-opened building had one of the least amounts of public square footage in the NBA before the renovations. Now it is among arenas in the league with the most. “That has been a gamechanger in letting the building breathe,” he says. The renovation introduced nine distinct “neighborhoods” to invite fans to gather, often centered around food and beverage. 

As part of expanding the space, the new front-door gets highlighted with an open glass atrium that connects the building directly to downtown and uses the brushed aluminum curtainwall for dramatic effect. 

With all the new space came a fresh approach to wayfinding, simplifying the process. And as people come into town for an international event, whether the NBA All-Star Game in February or the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame event, it eases navigation and makes it an “intuitive” process, Komoroski says.

Bringing the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony back to Cleveland – for the likes of  2021 inductees Tina Turner, Carole King, The Go-Go’s, Jay-Z, Foo Fighters and Todd Rundgren – in the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse shows the range of the building, Komoroski says. The thematic feel organizers can create from the display system in the bowl to the concourse and exterior “creates an ambiance and feel that we feel is second to none in our industry and befitting a major community and international event like the induction,” he says. “We couldn’t be more thrilled. We feel like we are in a position of strength now to provide Greg, the board and all the fans of rock ‘n’ roll the experience they so richly deserve. We couldn’t be more excited to have them here.” 

From tables set up on the floor of the venue to the seating bowl that allows the ceremony twice the number of guests than it has ever had in Cleveland, Harris says the move also gives the Hall a chance to heavily tier admission price points. And by having a quality seating bowl design, the lower-bowl seats are often just as good as the floor tables, he says. “The sightlines are terrific,” Harris says about the fan experience. From a concert point of view, he adds that the venue is “so user-friendly with the infrastructure, the ease of entry, ease of sound and light and everything else just being built for these types of shows.”

In those areas that haven’t been overtaken by the digital experience, the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse has one of the largest public art displays of any arena in the world. With over 100 pieces of art – many commissioned specifically for the venue – the art permeates the entire building, from an immersive experience while on an escalator to unique pieces that give the venue a sense of place while celebrating the people and places of Cleveland, Ohio. “There is a lot for the senses as people make their way around the building,” Komoroski says. 

Even before the renovation, the venue had one of the top-flight load-in, load-out experiences in the nation. With a dedicated access point off the highway and through an underground service area, a semitruck can drive unencumbered directly to the arena service area and the final parking area is steps away from the end stage. “It is incredibly convenient,” Komoroski says. “I have been in this industry for a while, it is one of the most convenient. It couldn’t be any easier.” The city also works with the venue to provide staging areas for trucks. 

Komoroski says having the international allure of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame move inside the venue will help showcase the arena’s ability to host virtually any event in the world held in an arena. “We feel very confident we will have one of the most spectacular executions the Rock Hall so rightly deserves and hopefully set a new standard associated with that,” he says. “It speaks positively to any sports entertainment event, no matter the size or scale, that Cleveland is on the map and definitely should be considered.”