The Best Seats
In The House

It seems as though a new story of a set of condemned bleachers pops up in news headlines each and every week. As schools and municipalities scramble to install seating ahead of upcoming sports and summer seasons, there are times when issues such as code compliance get overlooked and can result in brand new bleachers surrounded by yellow caution tape. While code compliance can vary across municipalities and other jurisdictions, there are a few set guidelines that seem to transcend all of these regulations.

Those mostly include design aspects such as double-footboards and double-riser planks used on the top row of seating but can include other items such as guardrails on certain sizes of bleacher seating as well.

As more facility operators and managers are becoming aware of these regulations, or the downfalls of not abiding by them, we’ve been met with an onslaught of requests to help guide purchasers in the right direction. When it comes to purchasing spectator seating structures such as bleachers, it pays to be in the know.

This was the case recently when a neighboring community reached out to our team for a number of new bleachers for one of their municipal parks. Located at the Dave Bowes Memorial Ball Park in South Frontenac, key stakeholders were interested in a number of new 5-row bleachers to facilitate seating for about 350 spectators.

On top of seating capacities, their number one request to us was to guarantee the adherence to building and safety codes when it comes to bleachers. Our knowledgeable team quickly walked them through the bleacher buying process and outlined all of the necessary requirements these bleachers would need to meet to be deemed code compliant in Ontario, Canada.

Taking it a step further, the municipality opted for our Gold Bleachers, which are code compliant in the United States as well as they are equipped with rear and side guardrails for an additional level of safety.

While compliance was their initial concern, they also requested that two of these bleachers be arranged in a back-to-back fashion. With two ball fields running adjacent to one another, this unique set up would allow spectator seating for both ball diamonds in somewhat of a confined space.

With the rear guardrails in place, this configuration aided in negating any possible safety hazards a unique configuration like this might cause in the future.Overall, the customer was not only impressed with our ability and experience with bleachers, but also our knowledge of safety codes. With a lot of bleachers on the market today that do not fit the majority of code requirements, it’s important to know who you are dealing with.