Construction crews are in full swing on Pittsburgh’s North Shore as the NFL Draft stage begins to take shape.
Steve Farago, the NFL’s director of event operations, said the build kicked off Saturday, when about 50 trucks rolled in loaded with equipment for the massive outdoor theater. The stage is rising along Art Rooney Avenue and spilling into the Gold Lot next to Acrisure Stadium.
Soe of the towering arches that define the draft’s signature stage design will start going up soon, giving Pittsburgh its first real glimpse of the big show to come.
“That’ll span across the theater structure — the bones of it,” Farago said. “We’ll get that up and running hopefully in the next day or two.
“This is our largest and longest build element for the draft, so you’ll continue to see work in the theater and on the stage over the next three weeks.”
It takes hundreds of crew members, both local and NFL event production partners, to put it together, he said.
“We definitely want to make sure we’re hiring local,” Farago said. “Definitely will be folks from Pittsburgh and the closer region having a hand in.”
The main portion of the theater structure will be up in the next couple of days, Farago said. During building, there will be fence lines so crews will be safe.
“You could probably see it from a distance,” he said. “There is a lot of heavy equipment and build going on, so I don’t encourage getting too close.
“We’re also trying not to bring the entire North Shore to a halt, be smart about the areas we’re occupying, and let folks enjoy the river walk there and such as they would on a normal day.”
In all, the theater structure weighs just under 1.5 million pounds and has 1.14 miles of truss. There will also be over 2,700 automated lighting fixtures as part of the theater and green room, as well as 1,317 LED video panels for the theater.
“It’ll be nice and bright. It’ll almost feel like a permanent structure,” Farago said. “You’ll feel like you’re in a venue that maybe already existed. It’s pretty phenomenal what we’re able to build there. “
The stage itself will probably be around 100 feet, and the actual structure of the Draft Theater will span over 200 feet, Farago said.
“We do advise caution,” he said. “It is an active construction site. We’ll have people managing that area, making sure it’s safe and there’s safe passage for local residents or business folks to get to and from while we continue our build safely.”
Fans can watch on other viewing screens across the draft footprint as well.
Encompassing the North Shore and Point State Park, the entire NFL Draft footprint in Pittsburgh will be nearly 4 million square feet — or over 68 football fields.
The main walking route between the North Shore and Point State Park across the Allegheny River will be the Roberto Clemente Bridge, which will be closed to regular vehicles.
The pedestrian walkway across the Fort Duquesne Bridge will be closed, despite it being the closest access from the North Shore to Point State Park by foot normally.
Based on the high number of people attending the draft, who will be walking in both directions between the North Shore and Point State Park, officials determined the bridge’s walkway would not be safe, Farago said.
The Clemente Bridge starts at PNC Park and connects with Sixth Street Downtown. Using the full bridge “also offers the opportunity to highlight the rest of Downtown Pittsburgh,” he said. It becomes “a walking tour of Pittsburgh.”
Farago said the NFL is not apprehensive about Pittsburgh — with its rivers, bridges and twisty traffic patterns — being able to support 500,000 and 700,000 fans coming in for the draft.
“We’ve been planning for months and months with our production partners, with local authorities, public safety, PRT, so I think we have a sound plan to move people back and forth safely across both sites and then again throughout Downtown,” Farago said.
After the bones of the theater are up, Farago said, other production elements like the lighting, rigging and floor of the stage will be put in. The theater area will also include seating for invited guests.
“It’s not a lot, maybe about 1,600 (seats) … we have a a core group of die-hard, dedicated fans called our ‘inner circle group’ who we invite from each host city,” he said. “There are 32 branded seated sections that fans from each club will sit in … with the Pittsburgh Steelers fans right front and center.
“They really bring that die-hard atmosphere, environment. They’re all decked out in their specific team gear. It’s a really cool part of the theater.”
The inner circle is decided through the NFL’s Club Business Development Department, which reaches out to the various football clubs like the Pittsburgh Steelers, Farago said.
“Each individual club and our folks at the league office will curate that list of invites,” he said. “They’re probably a mix of season ticket members from all the clubs, or other fans that the club wants to invite.”
Friends and family of the prospects are also invited to the seats.
“Just right outside the theater, we have our standing room only for the rest of the crowd coming down that’ll have great sight lines into the theater and be able to take in that atmosphere as well across the three days,” he said.
The NFL expects tens of thousands of people to be able to see the stage at any given point.
He said while core elements of the stage and theater remain the same across various NFL Drafts, the look and feel of the stage can change based on available space at the host location.
“(It’s a) familiar process from previous drafts, but it’s exciting to have this one being built in Pittsburgh as we speak,” Farago said. “We’ve used different stage structures, size and shape. This one is probably most similar to what you might have seen in Detroit.”