But gargantuan multi-billion-dollar bills for host cities, combined with stories of once sparkling venues being left to rust has taken the shine off such displays of excess.

In fact, in 2022, Jacqueline Barrett, a director at the International Olympics Committee (IOC), to avoid building new, permanent venues altogether in case they ended up as white elephants.

It was a lesson that last year鈥檚 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, which used 95% existing and temporary venues, took on board. And the trend looks set to continue when the Olympics and Paralympics come to Los Angeles, USA, in 2028. Organisers of LA28 aim to go one better by not building any new venues at all, in what is being billed as the 鈥�retrofit Olympics鈥�.

Don鈥檛 say 鈥榯emporary鈥�

But such an approach extends beyond sporting venues. The Abba Arena at Pudding Mill Lane, in London, is a 3,000-capacity concert venue that is home to Abba Voyage, a holographic depiction of Sweden鈥檚 greatest musical export, Abba, in their 1970s heyday.

Construction of the column-less, hexagonal, hybrid mass timber and steel building was completed in 2022. Two years later, it鈥檚 still there. That鈥檚 part of the reason why UK-based contractor , which built it, avoids the term 鈥渢emporary鈥�. Instead, the company prefers 鈥渄emountable鈥� because it can be dismantled, packed into containers and erected at another location, or its parts can be reused in the construction of other venues.

The Abba Arena is the largest demountable venue in the world. It is one of the latest in a long line of such venues that ES Global has built, stretching back at least as far as the London 2012 Olympics, where it constructed the water polo arena at the Olympic Park in Stratford and the shooting range in Woolwich.

The London 2012 Olympics shooting range in Woolwich, London (Image: Hufton + Crow)

The company actually started life building stages for touring rock concerts, explains Amy Casterton, director of business development at ES Global. 鈥淭hose stages have to come up and down all the time. So our structures are an evolution of that,鈥� she explains. 鈥淚t was really London 2012 that shifted the dial for us, where we built what were two basically permanent but redeployable buildings, for the water polo and the shooting. We鈥檝e continued to roll out this type of very high-performing building for broadcast and for sport that can be reconfigured and relocated.鈥�

Cost and the question of what to do with permanent venues after they had served their original purpose is a significant reason for the shift towards demountable structures, asserts Olly Watts, CEO of ES Global. But there are other factors at play.

鈥淚f you go back to the 2004 Athens Olympics, they took a very conventional approach and ended up building a series of what effectively became white elephants and that鈥檚 a great waste of money and effort,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut it also precludes small and developing countries from holding big events.鈥�

Jakarta鈥檚 velodrome, built by ES Global (Image: Aaron Pocock via ES Global)

He gives the example of the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, where ES Global built the velodrome 鈥� those games had originally been awarded to Hanoi, Vietnam until Hanoi鈥檚 plan to host was stymied by budgetary concerns. Then there鈥檚 the case of the coastal city of Durban in South Africa, which won a bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games only to be stripped of the hosting rights in 2017 due to an inability to meet financial requirements. The Games ended up being held in Birmingham, UK.

The Jakarta velodrome, is another 鈥渢emporary鈥� venue that was switched to being permanent without any change to the truss-based structure. It is still in use today.

Construction methods

The backbone of ES Global鈥檚 lower-cost, demountable buildings, is a steel truss system, which has been born out of its background providing touring concert staging.

鈥淚n a staging environment, you have a very limited time to build a big structure within a stadium and then take it down. So it was with requirement for fast delivery that we developed our own product,鈥� says Watts. Gradually, the approach has been applied to larger, higher-value projects that have a certain degree of 鈥減ermanence鈥�.

The company鈥檚 current systems can achieve the wide spans needed in sports venues to create good sight lines for broadcast, Casterton explains. 鈥淭hey are reconfigurable, so they bolt together, and they are flat pack. We can fit these huge box trusses into containers, so if someone says, 鈥榃e want to do a velodrome in six months鈥�, we can do it, provided we have those pieces.鈥�

One of the other benefits of the system is its circularity, she adds. 鈥淭he velodrome in Jakarta was made from components that had been used in the London Olympics and Sochi Olympics,鈥� she adds.

More sophisticated structures

And the structures are becoming increasingly sophisticated. ES Global is constructing four pavilions at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, for the UK, USA, Canada and Australia. All of them will be fully demountable and relocatable but they will also have to comply with permanent building codes and handle seismic and typhoon loadings. 鈥淲e have four different steel-framed structures going up for four different government clients with four different sets of engineers, architects, local architects of record and local engineers. It is kind of staggering,鈥� says Casterton.

ES Global is building four pavilions, including the UK鈥檚, at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan (Image: ES Global)

Watts adds that not only is ES Global using different truss types from existing stock for Expo 2025 but it has used the project as a catalyst for developing its modular products. 鈥淚n terms of demountable, multi-storey buildings, one of the most difficult things to deal with is fire rating. And so we have designed a system of floor cassettes which achieves a 90-minute burn time. It has been quite a challenge but we have managed it.

鈥淭hey are five-metre by two-metre floor panels that are very quick to construct. These are multi-storey buildings that are designed in such a way that at ground level, the ground bearing is taken care of in a well distributed manner and that means the footings are minimal, which most people find unbelievable. You haven鈥檛 got deep piles and concrete 鈥� the whole point is that we minimise what we leave in the ground,鈥� he says.

Casterton adds that the company is confident in the engineering of its modular product, having developed it to pass stringent testing in Japan.

And the developments made in Japan can potentially be applied to other markets, such as in the healthcare and defence sectors in the UK and North America.

Educating clients

That鈥檚 not to say that building in such a way is without its complications.

鈥淎 lot of people are not really familiar with doing anything other than in a conventional way. So there鈥檚 always quite a lot of dialogue and education required,鈥� says Watts.

鈥淲e are working with a lot of the world鈥檚 best engineers to develop the products and projects that we are delivering. But a local authority may not be so conversant with that relatively new approach. So often there鈥檚 quite a long-winded process to go through to be able to prove that it works.鈥�

Strict procurement models that don鈥檛 take account of innovative solutions can prove to be an obstacle, adds Casterton. Architects, cost consultants and advisors to clients often price traditional methods rather than considering alternatives. 鈥淭he advice for the client doesn鈥檛 always catch up with the innovative offer in the market,鈥� she asserts.

The catch-all term of 鈥渕odular鈥� doesn鈥檛 always help either. When clients hear the word they frequently expect volumetric cabins, rather than the fully modular panelised 2D systems that ES Global offers. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of client education still required. It鈥檚 not as easy to get to market as it should be for companies like us,鈥� Casterton says.

Future targets

Looking to the future, ES Global has its eyes on both LA28 (the company has established an office in the US), and the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

鈥淥ften on an Olympics, you will have an intelligent client who has perhaps brought in a team who鈥檝e worked on previous games,鈥� says Casterton, who points out that the company has the ability to reach into its existing kit of parts used in previous games.

The climbing wall at the 2024 Paris Olympics (Image: Tetsu Joko / The Yomiuri Shimbun via Reuters Connect)

鈥淲e can design a really sustainable and circular venue. We were lucky enough to engage with a lot of the future hosts in Paris during the Olympics in 2024 and take them to see some of the work we did, like the climbing wall.鈥�

The company sees the potential to provide add-on, demountable structures that will sit alongside pre-existing permanent venues in the host cities to maximise what they already have available.

And beyond individual sporting events, the company is also gearing up for more projects in the US, where modular building is still relatively unusual.

If the 鈥榬etrofit Olympics鈥� of LA28 sets the bar, the future of major events may not just be about what is built, but how it can be reused.