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Rupp Arena's tough task of hosting 3 games in 2 days

Updated: Fri 11:21 PM, Mar 08, 2013

Saturday will be busy day for Rupp Arena with a UK game and the Sweet 16 semifinals. So how do the crews at Rupp plan to pull off this unusual schedule?

Two days, three basketball games and tens of thousands of people are just a few obstacles that employees at Rupp will be dealing with on Friday and Saturday.

“You have to change the seating configuration, take declarations off the floor, move the media and press area to make the turnaround going into the UK game,” said Carl Hall, the Director of Arena Management at Rupp.

The real race against the clock begins after the UK game when employees have to transform the arena back in half the time.

“Within the three and a half hour window, we completely turn the arena back over which is quite an undertaking.”

But this isn't Rupp Arena’s first rodeo.

There are several time lapse videos on YouTube that show exactly what it takes to set up and take down three events in three days.

“It’s a very common task for us to make hard turns in the middle of the night. We have come out of a basketball game and switched to a concert. We have also gone from a rodeo to the Harlem Globe Trotters.”

UK’s game vs. Florida will begin Saturday at noon at Rupp Arena.

Saturday is also senior day fans are expected to start lining up around 11 a.m.

The Boys' Sweet 16 semi-finals will be held on Saturday night at 7:30.


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