Riyadh Season 2023 kicked off with a fight between sporting icons Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou, a competition described as the ‘Battle of the Baddest’.

This may have been an epic clash in the boxing world but the situation was less dramatic on site despite the building of the arena itself still work in progress.

Situated in the centre of the venue, we manufactured a 16m circular stage that served as the performance area for the opening ceremony. The ‘puck’ stage was mounted on tracks and using our Qmotion automation system gently slid back to reveal the boxing ring which rose up from the 6m deep pit below to host the main event.

The stage was manufactured using 1m square truss topped with stock staging units, supplemented with bespoke steel sections to the perimeter to create its circular shape. We worked closely with other contractors on site to mask off the LED screen that created the video floor, and to secure the lighting in a trough surrounding the stage, with a cantilevered camera platform fitted to the front to capture close shots of the performance.