The Best Seats
In The House

Maybe it was a call, or perhaps a memo that landed on your desk. No matter how it was delivered, you were tasked with acquiring a new set of bleachers. Your new facility, park, sports field or school needs some seating and you have no idea which way to turn.

The good news is, you aren’t alone. While there are buyers that are well-versed in the world of aluminum spectator seating, there are also many that don’t have any experience at all.

When it comes to selecting a new bleacher, there are a few things to figure out before picking up the phone. Given that they come in different shapes, sizes and configurations, it’s important to have a general idea about what exactly you are looking for.

As such, here’s a few things that will catapult you on your way to finding the right bleacher system.

Located in the rural west-end of the city of Ottawa is West Carleton Secondary School. Set on over 100 acres of land, the school serves as home to nearly 1,500 students, focusing both on academics and athletics. Known as the West Carleton Wolves, the school’s athletic department features sports teams in hockey, basketball, badminton, curling and volleyball. 

After a massive expansion to accommodate more students in 2018, West Carleton has continued to focus on improvements. One particular improvement took place in the school’s gymnasium, where an outdated set of bleachers was “locked out” rendering it unsafe and barely usable.

One of our recent projects had us working closely alongside our partners at Seating Safety Solutions back in the beautiful Tar Heel state. Working out of Liberty, North Carolina, Seating Safety Solutions has developed a reputation for being the best in bleacher seating throughout both North and South Carolina.

This unique project involved an existing bleacher structure at a school we had worked at previously. As is the case with many older seating structures across the country, this bleacher was still in great condition, but lacked ramps and barrier-free seating areas and was without any allowances for accessible seating. With more inclusive seating structures becoming the norm, many are turning to us to help them add on to existing structures in an effort to make them ADA compliant. Ensuring that all spectators can enjoy the action on the field is an initiative we can all get behind and one we take seriously.

Image: Pickleball Kingdom

If there’s one game that is making big moves, it’s one that you’ve likely been exposed to in one way or another over the past few years. Popularized throughout the 2010s, we now find ourselves in the middle of what many are labeling the “pickleball gold rush”. With the first national tournament in 2009 drawing over 400 players from Canada and the United States, the pickleball bug has since bitten participants of all ages.

As such, the search for space has become a growing challenge for facility managers and communities alike. Although many have repurposed tennis courts and converted other under-utilized outdoor spaces into pickleball courts, it has hardly kept  up with demand. As part of the rush, we’ve watched as individuals and even commercial real estate players get into the game in an effort to secure more space for additional courts.

Offering a bit of closure to an earlier post about this specific project, we’re happy to announce that the final installation was completed and the event was a huge success. Working closely with key stakeholders at Ottawa’s RA Centre, we were brought onboard to help close out the Centre’s new Curling Centre of Excellence.

As an international company, this is a question that comes up fairly frequently as it pertains to bleacher seating. With the bulk of our customers situated in both Canada and the United States, being informed on current building and safety codes for bleachers is something we take seriously.

Given that our two countries are so closely situated, it’s always worth remembering that no matter how close we may seem, our rules and regulations can differ quite broadly. While that statement can apply to a variety of other regulations, it’s especially true for bleacher seating.

When it comes to displaying school spirit not many products can match the effectiveness of our GameDay GraFX bleacher logo graphics. Adhered to seating, these digital graphics are printed to each seat to display team names or logos on existing or new telescopic bleachers.

With the growth of athletic programming over the years, both retractable bleacher sales and these state-of-the-art graphics have been in high demand.

While a lot of what we do is larger scale upgrades, in many cases, we are quite well known for the little things.  And as we all know, those are the things that can make all the difference.

One such subset of our product offering that meets the above parameters is our players benches. In some cases we can sell truckloads of them to help set up professional sports fields, college facilities or parks and municipal spaces.

In other cases, some of our customers have a need for just a couple of brand new benches for their athletic spaces.  Working with our friends at a school nearby our headquarters, we were in talks to upgrade some players benches that were completely outdated.  Battered by both years of use and the elements, the school approached our team looking for a more permanent and durable solution for their baseball diamond.

With three campuses spread across downtown Toronto, George Brown College has been a respected institution in both the city and the province since its inception in 1967. Today, the college serves nearly 80,000 students in over 170 different programs. 

We’ve had a long-standing relationship with the college, having worked with them on a variety of projects over the years, we’re proud to have played a small role in the school’s overall growth. With a relationship that spans decades, it’s no wonder when key stakeholders from the college are in need of new athletic equipment or infrastructure are quick to place a call to our offices.