Tampere Stadium ( fi, Tampereen stadion), also known as Ratina Stadium ( fi, Ratinan stadion), designed by architect

Timo Penttilä Timo Jussi Penttilä (16 March 1931 – 25 February 2011) was one of Finland's most important modernist architects and was for over 15 years a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Austria. He is most renowned for the design of th ...

and completed in 1965, is a

multi-purpose stadium A multi-purpose stadium is a type of stadium designed to be easily used by multiple types of events. While any stadium could potentially host more than one type of sport or event, this concept usually refers to a specific design philosophy tha ...

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, with a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of 16,800 people, and up to 32,000 people for concerts. In 2018, the stadium hosted the

IAAF World U20 Championships The World Athletics U20 Championships is a biennial world championships for the sport of athletics organised by the World Athletics, contested by athletes in the under-20 athletics age category (19 years old or younger on 31 December in the year ...

Football

The stadium primarily hosts

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

matches. It served as Tampere United's home stadium and it will be the home stadium for Finnish national team between 2016 and 2018 due to the renovation of the

Helsinki Olympic Stadium The Helsinki Olympic Stadium ( fi, Helsingin Olympiastadion; sv, Helsingfors Olympiastadion), located in the Töölö district about from the centre of the Finnish capital Helsinki, is the largest stadium in the country, nowadays mainly used f ...

. The stadium was also formerly used by

Ilves Ilves (; Finnish for " Lynx") is a Finnish professional ice hockey team based in Tampere. They play in the Liiga at the Tampere Deck Arena. The colors of Ilves, green, yellow, and black, were taken from what was then the coat of arms of the city ...

, which holds the record attendances for football matches in both European and domestic competitions: 24,873 against

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

on 19 September 1984 in the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

and 15,000 against

Kokkolan Palloveikot KPV (or Kokkolan Palloveikot) is a Finnish football club, based in Kokkola. It currently plays in the Finnish First Division (''Ykkönen''). The club's head coach is Christian Sund, and it plays its home matches at ''Kokkolan keskuskenttä''. H ...

on 9 October 1983 in the Finnish League.

Music

Over the years the stadium has hosted several music events. In addition to standalone concerts, it serves as the main arena for the annual hip hop festival

Blockfest Blockfest is an annual hip-hop festival held in Tampere, Finland. Normally held in August, the concert features the most popular acts that Hip hop music, hip-hop and R&B have to offer in a particular year. In recent years, the event has been org ...

Concerts

Speedway

Tampere Stadium is also used as a venue for

Motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that use only ...

. It was first used for international competition in 1974 as the host of the Nordic Final as part of the qualifying for the

Speedway World Championship The World Championship of Speedway is an international competition between the highest-ranked motorcycle speedway riders of the world, run under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). The first official championsh ...

. The Nordic Final was also held in Tampere in 1977 and 1989. The stadium also hosted the Finland National Championship on occasions. The stadium played host to the 1995 World Under-21 Championship Final won by

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Jason Crump Jason Philip Crump (born 6 August 1975) is an Australian international motorcycle speedway rider. He is a three-time Speedway World Champion, a World Cup winner and a former World Under-21 Champion. In a 21-year career in Speedway, Jason Cr ...

, and in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

the stadium hosted the inaugural Speedway Grand Prix of Finland won by

Slovenian Slovene or Slovenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe * Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia * Slovenes The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( sl, Sloven ...

rider Matej Zagar. Speedway returned to Ratina the following year, with the Finnish Grand Prix as Round 2 of the

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

Speedway Grand Prix Speedway Grand Prix are a series of stand-alone motorcycle speedway events over the course of a season used to determine the Speedway World Champion. The series started in 1995 replacing the previous format of a single event final. The first win ...

series. The speedway track is laid out over the stadium’s

athletics track An all-weather running track is a rubberized, artificial running surface for track and field athletics. It provides a consistent surface for competitors to test their athletic ability unencumbered by adverse weather conditions. Historically, v ...

References

External links