Friends Arena

Friends Arena is designed to be a truly multi-purpose facility. The arena seats 50,000 guests for international football matches and other sporting events, and can be configured to hold an additional 15,000 guests for concerts and other shows. Even the lighted facade of the arena’s exterior is customizable by color and pattern to match the variety of events occurring inside. A two-panel retractable roof allows Friends Arena to operate year-round and protect guests from inclement weather.

Working with Hollandia b.v., a leader in European steel construction, the staff of Uni-Systems Engineering designed and commissioned the electro-mechanical drive system for the Friends Arena retractable roof. The retractable roof panels are supported by bogies that roll across 8 parallel, arched rails that span the width of the arena. Roof panels are operated through the use of motor-driven cable drums located within the arena structure. These drums spool and unspool the 10 cables anchored to the roof panels. Panels are hoisted to the closed position in the center of the arena, and are retracted to the open position where they rest above the lower portion of the fixed roof and expose an open space of 110-meters by 60-meters (360 feet by 196 feet).