Tokyo Dome
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| Location | 3, Koraku 1-chome, Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan |
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| Coordinates | 35°42′20.37″N 139°45′6.89″E / 35.7056583°N 139.7519139°E |
| Owner | Tokyo Dome Corporation |
| Capacity | Officially 55,000 seats, real capacity 42,000 seats |
| Field size | Facility Capacity Area[1]
Site: 112,456 m2 (27.788 acres) |
| Opened | March 17, 1988 |
| Tenants | |
| Yomiuri Giants (NPB (Central League)) (1988–present) Nippon Ham Fighters (NPB (Pacific League)) (1988–2004) | |
Tokyo Dome (東京ドーム Tōkyō Dōmu, TYO: 9681) is a 55,000-seat [1] stadium (actual capacity: 42,000 seats) located in Bunkyo Ward of Tokyo, Japan.
It opened for business on March 17, 1988 and was built close to the site of its predecessor, Kōrakuen Stadium. Like Kōrakuen, the Dome hosts the Toei Superheroes live shows of the year.
The design is supposedly based on the Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA after some tourists from Japan visited there and came back home with the idea for Tokyo Dome.[2]
Tokyo Dome's original nickname was "The Big Egg", with some calling it the "Tokyo Big Egg". Its dome-shaped roof is an air-supported structure, a flexible membrane held up by slightly pressurizing the inside of the stadium.
It is the home field of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, and has also hosted basketball, American football and association football games, as well as puroresu (pro-wrestling) matches, mixed martial arts events, K-1 Kickboxing events, monster truck races, and music concerts. It is also the location of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame which chronicles the history of baseball in Japan.
Tokyo Dome City
Tokyo Dome is part of a greater entertainment complex known as Tokyo Dome City. Tokyo Dome City includes an amusement park and Tokyo Dome City Attractions (formerly Kōrakuen Grounds). This amusement park occupies the former Korakuen Stadium site and includes a roller coaster named Thunder Dolphin and a hubless Ferris wheel. The grounds also have an onsen called Spa LaQua, various shops, restaurants, video game centers, the largest JRA WINS horse race betting complex in Tokyo, and Oft Korakuen, which caters to rural horse races.
Record sellouts
Mariah Carey's performed three "Tokyo Dome" shows in 1996, which became the fastest sellouts in the stadiums history, when all 150,000 tickets sold out in less than 3 hours.[3]
Notable performances
Tokyo Dome is the largest concert hall in Japan. The first live performance inside the Tokyo Dome was by The Alfee and an International Military Marching Band pageant, with bands from Australia, England, USA, Poland, Germany, China, Japan and others on March 19, 1988.[4]
International artists that have performed at the stadium include Aerosmith, B.B. King, Backstreet Boys, Beyoncé, Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey, Cheap Trick, Celine Dion, Faith No More, Fiction Plane, Fuel, Guns N' Roses, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, KISS, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Metal Church, Metallica, Kylie Minogue, The New Power Generation, The Police, Prince, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, Britney Spears, Mavis Staples, Sting, U2 and Van Halen, among others.
Other artists that have performed at the stadium include Ayumi Hamasaki, NEWS, KAT-TUN, Hey! Say! JUMP, X JAPAN, LUNA SEA, The GazettE and Tohoshinki, among others.
From December 9–26, 1988, Michael Jackson performed nine shows in the Tokyo Dome as the penultimate residency of his Bad World Tour.
Janet Jackson sold out the Tokyo Dome with four shows on her debut, Rhythm Nation World Tour. These four dates, May 17-18 and November 6-7, 1990, still hold the record for the fastest sell out in the history of the Tokyo Dome, a record seven minutes.
In February 1992, Guns N' Roses played three sold out shows at the Tokyo Dome during their Use Your Illusion Tour. One of which was released as a 2-part DVD. Nearly 18 years later, with the new line up, on December 19, 2009, during the Chinese Democracy Tour, the band played their longest show in their career, at 3 hours and 37 minutes and longest concert held at the Dome.
Yellow Magic Orchestra played two sold out concerts at the Tokyo Dome on June 10-11, 1993. This was their only two concerts since their dissolution in 1983 and would be their last until their reformation in 2007.[5]
Mariah Carey performed three sold-out shows at the Dome during her Daydream World Tour on March 7, 10 and 14, 1996. The tickets for these concerts, totaling at over 150,000 seats, sold out in under 3 hours, making it the fastest selling show at the Tokyo Dome.[6]
In August 2008, KAT-TUN broke the record for the longest consecutive days of concerts, when they performed at the stadium for four days in a row. Less than a year later, they broke their own record with concerts in eight days in a row from May 15, 2009, as they sold all tickets immediately.
In 2009, Tohoshinki held their final concert of their 4th Live Tour ~The Secret Code~, making them the first Korean group to perform there.
The Dome hosted an annual college football game known as the Coca-Cola Bowl from 1988 to 1993; perhaps the most famous of these games saw Houston Cougars quarterback David Klingler pass for a record 716 yards to lead the 11th-ranked Cougars to a 62-45 victory over the Arizona State Sun Devils on December 1, 1990.
Tokyo Dome has hosted the two-day X-Trail Jam snowboarding competition seven times since February 2001.
The Chicago Cubs and the New York Mets played a pair of games here to open the 2000 season, the first time American Major League Baseball teams have played regular season games in Asia. The New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays played two games there in March of 2004 to open that season. The Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics opened the 2008 MLB season in Japan as well. These teams also competed against Japanese teams.[7] The Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics 6–5 in extra innings in the first game.[8]
In October 2003, the (then) Seattle Super Sonics beat the L.A. Clippers in the first pre season exhibition game of the NBA 2003-2004 season.
In August 2005, the Atlanta Falcons beat the Indianapolis Colts 27–20 in the first NFL preseason game of the year in the stadium.
The Tokyo Dome has hosted several championship prize fights, including the heavyweight boxing championship fight on February 10, 1990, where Mike Tyson lost the championship to 42–1 shot James "Buster" Douglas by a tenth-round knockout.
In 1997, mixed martial arts organization PRIDE Fighting Championships held its first event in the dome and attracted 47,000 fans.
Before the team moved to Hokkaido in 2004, the Nippon Ham Fighters also used Tokyo Dome as home ground, and continued to use the dome for several regular season games every season, including inter-league games.
New Japan Pro Wrestling holds an annual Tokyo Dome event on January 4, attracting record crowds. It was the most anticipated pro wrestling ("puroresu") event of the year.
Under the ground rules set up by the dome, any ball that which or is trapped by the hanging items in outfield area's roof will be ruled as home runs. Hitting any other part of the roof will be considered as in-play. In addition, prize money will be given out if any home run hits the advertisement boards in the scoreboard.
On May, 2011, latin superstars of Two Faces Of Love cast will perform two shows here (21 & 22) becoming the first latin artist in history to reach this stage and also to sell out consecutive dates in less than 45 minutes.
In popular culture
In their song, "The Sounder", the virtual band Gorillaz makes a reference to the Tokyo Dome, saying: "Gorillaz rock the dome just like the one in Tokyo."
A scene in the Ben Mezrich book Ugly Americans involves a football game between Ivy League and Japanese all-star teams.
Gallery
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Baseball at the Tokyo Dome -
The Tokyo Dome and the amusement park Tokyo Dome City Attractions. (2003 photo). -
Tokyo Dome and its attached amusement park occupies the grounds of the former Kōrakuen stadium and baseball park. The vegetation on the left is Koishikawa Korakuen Garden, a historic site. (1974 photo).
See also
References
- ^ a b "TOKYO DOME CITY WEB SITE Architectural Features". Retrieved 2008-03-26.
- ^ Metrodome Memories: The last hurrah... by KARE11 Janel Klein
- ^ Mariah Carey: revisited
- ^ "Tokyo Dome concerts, 1988-1990". Retrieved 2009-11-23.
- ^ http://www.tokyo-dome.co.jp/e/dome/past_concerts2.htm
- ^ http://www.mcarchives.com/biography/?chapter=16
- ^ "Red Sox, A's Japan-bound in 2008". Retrieved 2008-03-26.
- ^ "Moss, Manny fuel comeback". Retrieved 2008-03-26.
External links
