Lord's Cricket Ground

Lord's Cricket Ground (generally known as Lord's) is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the European Cricket Council (ECC) and, until August 2005, the International Cricket Council (ICC). Lord's is widely referred to as the "home of cricket" and is home to the world's oldest sporting museum.
  Lord's today is not on its original site, being the third of three grounds that Lord established between 1787 and 1814. His first ground, now referred to as Lord's Old Ground, was where Dorset Square now stands. His second ground, Lord's Middle Ground, was used from 1811 to 1813 before being abandoned to make way for the construction through its outfield of the Regent's Canal. The present Lord's ground is about 250 yards (230 m) north-west of the site of the Middle Ground. A major redevelopment has been proposed for Lord's which would increase capacity by another 10,000 as well as adding apartments and an ice rink.
  The main survivor of the Victorian era is The Pavilion with its famous Long Room; this was built in 1889–90 to the designs of architect Thomas Verity. This historic landmark — a Grade II*-listed building — underwent an £8 million refurbishment programme in 2004–05. The pavilion is primarily for members of MCC who may use its amenities including seats for viewing the cricket, the Long Room and other facilities such as the Long Room Bar, the Bowlers Bar, a members shop etc. For Middlesex matches the Pavilion is open to members of the Middlesex County Club. The Pavilion also contains the dressing rooms where players change, each of which has a small balcony for players to watch the play. In each of the two main dressing rooms are honours boards which commemorate all the centuries scored in Test matches on the Lord’s ground and all instances of a bowler's taking five wickets in a Test innings and ten wickets in a Test match.
  Lord's hosts Test matches, one-day Internationals, some Middlesex home matches, MCC matches and (starting with a fixture between Middlesex and Surrey in July 2004) some of Middlesex's home Twenty20 games.
  Lord's typically hosts two Tests every summer – including the first Test of the summer – plus two One Day Internationals. Lord's also plays host to the finals of the National Village Cricket Competition, the MCC Universities Challenge tournament and The Friends Provident Trophy. Furthermore, two matches in the Twenty20 Cup, but not the competition's finals day, are played at Lord's each season.
  The oldest permanent fixture at Lord's is the annual Eton versus Harrow match which began in 1805 (Lord Byron played in the 1805 Harrow XI) and celebrated its bicentennial in 2005. The match is always fiercely contested. Since 2000 it has been 55 overs per side, but before that it was declaration and before that it was two innings per side over two days. Eton has the balance of wins, but the victor in the bicentenary year was Harrow.

The O2 Arena (London)

Following the closure of the Millennium Experience at the end of 2000, the Millennium Domewas leased to Meridian Delta Ltd. in 2001, for redevelopment as an entertainment complex. This included plans for an indoor arena.

Construction of the arena started in 2003 and finished in 2007. Owing to the impossibility of using cranes inside the dome structure, the arena's roof was constructed on the ground within the dome and then lifted. The arena building's structure was then built around the roof. The arena building, which houses the arena and the arena concourse, is independent from all other buildings in The O2 and houses all the arena's facilities. The whole arena building takes up 40% of the total dome structure.

The seating arrangement throughout the whole arena can be modified, similar to the MEN Arena. The ground surface can also be changed between ice rink, basketball court, exhibition space, conference venue, private hire venue and concert venue.

The arena was built to reduce echoing which has previously been a problem in many London music venues. The sound manager for U2, Joe O'Herlihy, worked with acoustic engineers to introduce measures such as sound absorbing material on the arena roof and the bottom of strategically placed seats to reduce echoing.

Despite The O2 arena's being open for only seven months of the year, the venue sold over 1.2 million tickets in 2007, making it the third most popular venue in the world for concerts and family shows narrowly behind the MEN Arena (1.25 million) and Madison Square Garden in New York (1.23 million). In 2008, it became the world's busiest venue taking the crown from MEN Arena with sales of more than two million.

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