The Best Seats
In The House

Honouring current, past and present women whose lives exemplified the courage, resilience and independence that ultimately shaped the American West, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame is the only museum in the world dedicated to preserving their history.

Located in Fort Worth, Texas the museum is home to more than 4,000 artifacts and information regarding over 750 remarkable women, celebrating their decorated past and on-going contributions to American society today.

In 2015, the museum began the early stages of what would be a massive $5.5 million renovation that eventually made its way upstairs to the facility’s second floor. With much fanfare, the second floor was once again open to the public earlier this month and we were fortunate to have been involved with the redevelopment of one of the museum’s attractions.

Operating as the second largest high school athletic association in North America, the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) is home to annual championships in sports such as basketball, hockey, cross country, curling, field hockey, tennis, skiing, badminton, volleyball, golf, gymnastics and more.

Leading up to this year’s basketball championships, our hometown team from Almonte District High School hit a small snag in their fundraising efforts and approached our team for support.

Having supported the team in the past, we gladly did what we could to make the trip to London’s Fanshawe College happen for the boys’ team. With support from our local community and from other organizations, the boys were on their way last week as the 3^rd-ranked team in the provincial tournament.

Taking the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) by storm, the team at Next Supply has revolutionized how hydronics and plumbing supplies would be made available across this fast-paced region. By dividing the GTA into succinct zones based on neighborhoods and traffic zones, they have created a number of full-service locations across the region and have filled those locations with the very best industry talent in Toronto.

The result has seen the decentralized business model embraced by those who have come to love the company, the people and what makes them different from the rest.

The rugged beauty of the Canadian west is certainly something we will grow tired of any time soon and we were fortunate enough to experience it once again this year. Linking up with our partners at RecTec Industries located in picturesque Delta, British Columbia, they brought us a truly unique project at a local high school.

Located in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, this project brought us to Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School, also known as Tweedy by the local community. Established in the early 1940s, the school was founded on the principles of social responsibility and student achievement.

With enrollment numbers of well over 2,000 students, the school’s athletic department was looking not only for some outdoor bleacher seating for their sports field but also for a pair of highly customized spotter stands as well.

Anytime you are building something that is intended to host a large amount of people, safety should be at the forefront of your design plans. When it comes to bleacher seating, slipping is among the biggest and most important safety threats to account for during the design and manufacturing process.

Whether located indoors or outdoors, aluminum bleachers ultimately present certain safety hazards to the people who use them. For outside bleachers, with constant exposure to the elements and varying weather conditions, the risk for slippery surfaces is somewhat obvious. Wet surfaces, particularly those constructed of aluminum or steel, can quickly become hazards if not properly designed and treated. In fact, there are an estimated 8 million cases of injury related to slips and falls each year in the United States alone.

It's probably safe to say that we have all found ourselves sitting in some bleachers at one time or another in our lives. Sports and community events are deeply weaved into North American culture and cheering on our favourite team is a pastime we hold close to our hearts.

These large seating structures are found across sports fields, parks and recreational areas, and educational facilities. As our family members, teammates, classmates, friends and family hone their skills out on the field, ice or turf, we support them from the aluminum and steel bleachers that sit along the sidelines.

In addition to items such as handrails and guardrails, there is much that goes into the complex design of bleachers when it comes to safety. As nothing ruins an event more than an injury, our industry has spent decades perfecting our products to make them safer for all to use.

Heading into the great American Midwest, one of our recent projects landed us in the beautiful state of Missouri. Located roughly 50 miles outside of St. Louis, this project took us to the city of Union where, along with our partners at Carrol Seating, we were commissioned to design a truly unique bleacher.

As the city’s only secondary school, our project was anchored at Union High School, just west of the city. With one seating structure already in place on the home side of the school’s football field, the school district was looking to complement the existing bleacher with another. Given that the current bleacher was not terribly accessible for those in wheelchairs, the mandate of this project was to ensure that the next phase of seating would be completely ADA compliant, allowing all of their fan base access to the bleachers.

Whether you are working on designing a new outdoor sports field, community park, greenspace or other athletic facility, there is so much that goes into the planning process.

When it comes to athletics, we are immediately drawn to what is required to play the game. Items such as soccer goals, football uprights, turf, field paint, etc. are usually the first to get squared away. Following closely behind is the determination as to what kind of seating will be required for the new location. While requirements definitely differ from location to location and are based on what prospective sport is scheduled to be played, most will settle on either a smaller 3-10 row bleacher structure or opt for a larger seating structure such as a complete grandstand.

The complementary amenities market is exploding as designers, planners and operators are looking for additional ways to make the most out of their facility. Below we have broken down the top three site amenities suited to accommodate your next bleacher seating purchase.

In the 40 years in which we have been in operation, our proudest accomplishment has been not only our rapid expansion in Canada and the US, but also into other foreign markets such as Kuwait, Barbados, and Europe among many others.

Once again, we were fortunate to have another international invitation to bring athletic equipment abroad, this time to the African nation of the Republic of Uganda. Located in east-central Africa in the Great Lakes region, the country is completely landlocked except for a portion of their border on Africa’s largest lake, Lake Victoria.

Near the end of 2016, our team was directly contacted by Richard Stanley from the 303 Development Group located in Staten Island, New York to discuss the possibility of a new multipurpose sports facility in Uganda. As a part of an expansion to the Allen VR Stanley Secondary School, the facility was in the process of planning a new indoor pavilion that would accommodate sports such as basketball, badminton, volleyball and many other events. The construction of such a facility would prove to be the first of its kind in the Republic of Uganda and one that had everyone very excited.

Sounds a bit crude, doesn’t it?

It’s a word we often use here in the industry and not surprisingly one that we often field a lot of questions about.

Given the apparent root of the word, many of those who have never heard it immediately think we are referring to either a rest room or a shortcut to one through a maze of aluminum seating. Truthfully, the latter isn’t terribly far off.

History of Vomitory

The original Latin translation from the word vomitorium was derived from vomere to be defined as “disgorging the spectators”. The definition became more defined through the mid 1700s when the first known use of vomitory was recorded and defined as “an entrance piercing the banks of seats of a theatre, amphitheater, or stadium” according to the good folks at Merriam-Webster.