PYONGYANG - Rungnado 1st of May Stadium (150,000)

215180 Views 266 Replies 114 Participants Last post by parcdesprinces, 7 mo ago

Huskies

Discussion Starter · Apr 15, 2009

ok so im new to this forum , i have rad many interesting threads here , but i decided to create a user so i can ask questions to all you knowlegable people out there !

the may day stadium in pyongyang is listed everywhere as the largest stadium in the world with 150 000 seats. the thing that i find craazy is that nobody seems to question that ...

ok , since the stadium is in north korea , the most isolated country in the world , and not as far as i know home to any soccer team i can understand its not the most talked about stadium , HOWEVER a stadium that is apparently by far the biggest in the world deserves its own thread ...

ok so my question is .. does that stadium really take 150 000 people ? i mean the only pictures people post of it is from the outside , and all the pictures from the inside are on the field and not on the stands . there is a low quality photo of the stands on world stadiums and it looks nowhere near a 150 000 capacity ..

yes i understand north koreans are small and you can squeeze in alot of them on a concrete stair type of stand , but still i dont think that stadium can hold more than 100 000 ...

and on the mass games , there seem to be a big one tire stand where all the people with the signs are , but on the pic on worldstadiums it looks like a two tire configuration all the way .... can anyone explain that ?

and last but not least please post your pictures of THE INSIDE of the stadium here ( if you dont know how it looks on the outside just google it or something .... ) since westerners have been alowed in the stadium for different events , SOMEONE must have taken pictures of the stands .. i mean come on biggest stadium in the world , and most people including me dont have a clue how the stands look .... we need to change that !!!

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61 - 80 of 267 Posts

CharlieP

· #61 · Apr 29, 2009

CharlieP said:
Also, don't forget that the 89th and 90th rows will have a lot more seats than the 73rd, 74th and 75th, so it's not just a case of scaling up...

Bobby3 said:
Given that it has an athletics track which would make the diameter larger, it's possible.

ReiAyanami said:
People, it has a very big diameter already from the first rows, like any other stadium with football pitch (I don't mean handegg) and athletic track around it. And don't forget the higher you get on the tier, the more seats you have.

I think we're all making the same point, but I thought I'd try and illustrate it with real numbers (however badly estimated they actually are). If anybody wants to correct or improve them please feel free.

The circumference of the first row at Michigan Stadium is probably around 400 metres.

The distance from the back of a seat to the back of the seat in front of it is probably around 75 cm.

This means that the circumference of each row is about 4.7 metres greater than the one in front of it.

The width of each seat is probably around 50 cm.

We can calculate that there are (C + 2.Pi.D.N) / W seats on each row, where:

C is the initial circumference
D is the distance between seat backs
N is the row number (starting from 0)
W is the seat width

At Michigan that becomes (400 + 4.7 N) / 0.5 seats on each row, meaning 800 on the first and 1655.4 on the last. Adding them all together makes the total 112,948 seats, which isn't far off (I didn't take vomitories and walkways into account) - introducing a factor of 0.94 to the formula gets you close enough to the real figure.

The circumference of the first row at Rungnado Stadium is probably around 600 metres (there's a lot of room around the track). If we assume the seats are the same size as at Michigan, the formula becomes 0.94 x (600 + 4.7N) / 0.5 - a total of 136,121.

Some people are suggesting that the seats might be smaller and closer together than they are at Michigan. If we just take 5 cm off each measurement, the formula becomes 0.94 x (600 + 4.4 N) / 0.45, making the total 149,580.

Of course, I haven't taken into account the fact that Rungnado has two tiers - you'd have to use my formula for each, if you knew the dimensions of the upper ring...

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Reactions: 1

parcdesprinces

· #62 · Apr 29, 2009

Great Illustration :applause:

I think you're right and I think also the seats of Rungnado are smaller than in any US stadium (even in European stadiums they are smaller than US ones, for those I saw).

westsidebomber

· #63 · Apr 29, 2009

That's alot of math haha, but good points.

My only thing is I would think that the space allotted for a seat at Michigan Stadium would actually be smaller considering it is simply a bench than individual seats. Many times a conversion factor is used when trying to calculate how much a stadium would seat as an all-seater. This uses the common knowledge that individual seats take up more room per seat than benches do, no matter how skinny the chairs are.

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Huskies

Discussion Starter · #64 · Apr 29, 2009

CharlieP said:
I think we're all making the same point, but I thought I'd try and illustrate it with real numbers (however badly estimated they actually are). If anybody wants to correct or improve them please feel free.

The circumference of the first row at Michigan Stadium is probably around 400 metres.

The distance from the back of a seat to the back of the seat in front of it is probably around 75 cm.

This means that the circumference of each row is about 4.7 metres greater than the one in front of it.

The width of each seat is probably around 50 cm.

We can calculate that there are (C + 2.Pi.D.N) / W seats on each row, where:

C is the initial circumference
D is the distance between seat backs
N is the row number (starting from 0)
W is the seat width

At Michigan that becomes (400 + 4.7 N) / 0.5 seats on each row, meaning 800 on the first and 1655.4 on the last. Adding them all together makes the total 112,948 seats, which isn't far off (I didn't take vomitories and walkways into account) - introducing a factor of 0.94 to the formula gets you close enough to the real figure.

The circumference of the first row at Rungnado Stadium is probably around 600 metres (there's a lot of room around the track). If we assume the seats are the same size as at Michigan, the formula becomes 0.94 x (600 + 4.7N) / 0.5 - a total of 136,121.

Some people are suggesting that the seats might be smaller and closer together than they are at Michigan. If we just take 5 cm off each measurement, the formula becomes 0.94 x (600 + 4.4 N) / 0.45, making the total 149,580.

Of course, I haven't taken into account the fact that Rungnado has two tiers - you'd have to use my formula for each, if you knew the dimensions of the upper ring...

thank you so much for that formula ... might come in hand in one of my future school projects ..

with (C + 2.Pi.D.N) / W i assume you mean ( C+2 * pi * D * N ) /W with the dots you mean * ( times ) right ?

the confusing thing about this stadium , is that when you only look at this stadium and listen to mathematic arguments and such , 150 000 sounds resonable.... however , when you compare it to other stadiums , it does not seem to be enough size difference for it to be that huge ... :nuts:

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pompeyfan

· #65 · Apr 30, 2009

Huskies said:
thank you so much for that formula ... might come in hand in one of my future school projects .. with (C + 2.Pi.D.N) / W i assume you mean ( C+2 * pi * D * N ) /W with the dots you mean * ( times ) right ?

the confusing thing about this stadium , is that when you only look at this stadium and listen to mathematic arguments and such , 150 000 sounds resonable.... however , when you compare it to other stadiums , it does not seem to be enough size difference for it to be that huge ... :nuts:

The thing about comparing this to other stadiums is that not all stadiums are exactly the same. The width between seats is different, the seat size is different and the depth per row isn't the same. To best demonstrate this, i give you this scenario - two stadiums, same circular pitch size(200m) and shape, same number of rows (30), and the same additional circumference per row (2.4m). However, stadium 2 has more seats than stadium 1. Stadium 1 has a seat size of 0.5m, and a basic capacity, using the math provided earlier (i won't rejustify it) of:

200*2.4*30/0.5 = 28,800.

Stadium 2 has a seat size of only 0.48m, and a basic capacity of

200*2.4*30/0.48 = 30,000.

That's a difference of 1,200 seats when one stadium has a seat size 2cm smaller! This stadium also only has 30 rows, the stadium we are talking about here has over 90 rows! The difference in seat size will also likely be far bigger as well!

Also, be very careful when comparing stadiums by images, unless you know that the camera and it's settings were exactly the same, it can be quite misleading.

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CharlieP

· #66 · Apr 30, 2009

Huskies said:
thank you so much for that formula ... might come in hand in one of my future school projects .. with (C + 2.Pi.D.N) / W i assume you mean ( C+2 * pi * D * N ) /W with the dots you mean * ( times ) right ?

No problems. Don't forget it's extremely simplistic, and assumes stadia are completely regular.

Yes, the dot implies multiplication - it should really have been a middle dot but I was being lazy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication#Notation_and_terminology

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choyak

· #67 · May 16, 2009

ReiAyanami said:
People, it has a very big diameter already from the first rows, like any other stadium with football pitch (I don't mean handegg) and athletic track around it. And don't forget the higher you get on the tier, the more seats you have.

Hehehehe what you refer to as 'handegg' I have been referring to as 'the egg game' for like 10 years or so!!!

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kivo

· #68 · May 17, 2009

I calculated the capacity a few years ago using a whole library of pictures at around 119,200.

Huskies

Discussion Starter · #69 · May 17, 2009

kivo said:
I calculated the capacity a few years ago using a whole library of pictures at around 119,200.

wow those pictures must be awesome .. at least some of them ... how did you find them ? i couldn´t find any pics of the interior of the stadium before i started this thread, so it shouldnt be that easy finding pictures in library books either .... do you have any pictures to post ?

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Jim856796

· #70 · Jul 8, 2009

I looked at the last photo in this thread and saw that the lower ter did have proper seating, but what about its upper tier? Are there any photos that show a closeup of the stadium's upper tier of seating? It's either silver-coloured seats or no seating at all.

Huskies

Discussion Starter · #71 · Jul 22, 2009

Jim856796 said:
I looked at the last photo in this thread and saw that the lower ter did have proper seating, but what about its upper tier? Are there any photos that show a closeup of the stadium's upper tier of seating? It's either silver-coloured seats or no seating at all.

agree , we really need closeups on the upper tier , ASAP

prefferably taken from the upper tier aswell ...

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Severiano

· #72 · Jul 23, 2009

I believe it. It looks absolutely huge, the first tier looks about the size of a US college football stadium.

Basel_CH

· #73 · Jul 23, 2009

I also think the capacity could be 150`000, however the architecture is very terrible and it has a very cold communistic touch. Awful stadium, but capacity could be ok. Maybe its also just 140`000 or 130`000, but who cares?

Huskies

Discussion Starter · #74 · Jul 26, 2009

if you look at one of the pictures on page one ( to lazy to quote it ) you see that there is yellow seats without backrests in the lower tier , while on the newer pictures you can clearly see that the entire lower tier has seats with backrests. and if the stadium has a current capacity of 150 000 , it should have been even higher when the seats didn't have backrests. about most stadiums you usually hear unupdated capacity higher than the current one ,like camp nou having a 114 000 cap , but i have never heard anything about this stadiums being 160 000 or something like that ..its 150 000 everywhere .

since information about north korea is a little fishy, you could draw the conclusion that 150 000 is the unupdated number from the pre backrest era

that should put the current number at 120-130 000 or so , which is stil huge...

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Jim856796

· #75 · Aug 17, 2009

This may be off topic, but Pyongyang also has a stadium which is less than half the size of the May Day Stadium. It is the Kim Il-Sung Stadium. It was built in 1969 and renovated in 1982. It has a 70,000 capacity and half of the stadium's single tier is filled with seating.

mvictory

· #76 · Aug 17, 2009

It's not that hard to believe that it can seat 150,000 the origional plan for waverley stadium in melbourne was for 150,000 and it doesnt look any bigger.

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Huskies

Discussion Starter · #77 · Aug 17, 2009

man i am sooo pissed , i found some great interior pics of the stadium on flickr , one of them prooving that the " pixel stand " is indeed a temporary steel sructure , but i lost them and cant find them , since there are like 4000 may day stadium related pics on flickr , and 3980 of them is just crappy pictures of gymnasts..... :bash:

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Petr

· #78 · Sep 28, 2009

I don't think it's truth.

Beijing National Stadium 91 000

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Ganis

· #79 · Sep 28, 2009

I think this 1st of May stadium is full of shit in my opinion.

Qtya

· #80 · Sep 28, 2009

For example...

ban Bank said:
Puskás Ferenc Stadion
Ferenc Puskás Stadium
city: Budapest/Zugló
category: stadium reconstruction, new main grandstand (originally built in 1953)
opened: 2002
capacity: 75000 (concerts), 44000-68976 (football, athletics)

Qtya said:

When it had all benches, the capacity record was 104000 thousand... Based on this, I think the 1st of May stadium can hold 150k spectators...

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