Intuit Dome finally ready for long-awaited grand opening with Bruno Mars concert

Today in Los Angeles, the Intuit Dome will open with a concert by Bruno MarsIvan Baan

The Intuit Dome project officially broke ground in September 2021. Tonight, August 15, 2024, the more than $2 billion, privately funded facility will open in Inglewood, California, with a concert by Bruno Mars, bringing to life an arena with significant interest from the sports industry. For Clippers President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker, the three years of construction on the Intuit Dome are just a fraction of the decade she’s been with the team; most of those 10 years have been spent fulfilling owner Steve Ballmer’s desire for the Clippers to have a home of their own.

“It doesn’t feel like it happened in the blink of an eye,” Zucker said Wednesday evening. “There’s an incredible amount of time, people, effort, emotion, passion and excitement that went into this. Surreal is the right word.”

Many in the industry are intrigued by how the venue is performing. While much of the venue’s design – architects were AECOM; contractor AECOM Hunt; Henderson Engineers and Walter P Moore were also major contributors – focuses on getting fans into their seats quickly and keeping them there, it bucks industry trends by fully embracing technology to create a more seamless experience, including entering the building and purchasing food and beverages. AiFi provided the seamless merchandising technology, while Clear provides the identity solution. Globant built the app integrations (including Ticketmaster) needed to create the venue’s two identity systems, one called “Game Face,” which allows fans to take a selfie that is then used to confirm their identity, and the other called Identity Pass, which doesn’t use biometrics but enables the same experience.

The Clippers are encouraging fans — both concertgoers and basketball fans — to download the Intuit Dome app early and sign up if they want to take advantage of the identity offer. Zucker said, “The adoption has been much, much better than we expected,” and that the Intuit Dome app has already been downloaded tens of thousands of times.

The Bruno Mars concert kicks off a run of four shows in four nights at the Intuit Dome and six in the first seven days the building is open. The venue’s first basketball game will be Oct. 23, as part of the Clippers-Jazz preseason game. Zucker said there are “tricks” for fans that won’t be revealed until at least the Emirates NBA Cup game against the Kings on Nov. 22, and maybe the regular season. In the meantime, with 26 shows before the basketball game, “it’s all about getting the building in and running properly, and I think we’re ready to do that,” Zucker said. “We’ve been doing smaller events for months.”

READ: Intuit Dome Designed to Get Fans to Their Seats Quickly and Keep Them There

READ: Steve Ballmer’s Significant Impact on Intuit Dome