The team effort needed for Saturday’s State Farm Arena Dream-to-Hawks conversion

State Farm Arena has had a busy schedule in October.

But it comes to a head on Saturday, when the arena team has to flip courts from the Dream’s Game 4 WNBA Finals matchup against the Valkyries to the Hawks’ home opener against the Rockets.

Typically, the arena crew has about five to six hours to convert to different configurations. But on Saturday, the crew will have just a few hours.

On average, Dream games last about 2.5 hours.

“We’re estimating the end time (of the Dream game) to be somewhere around 3:30 or 4, and then we’re opening doors again at 7:30,” Amanda Mann, State Farm Arena’s executive vice president and chief facilities officer, said.

“So, no matter what, we only have about three and a half to four hours, and we’re gonna get it done in that time.”

State Farm Arena will need to coordinate closely between its departments to ensure the conversion happens without a hitch.

They’ll coordinate with ushers and their housekeeping crew, as well as the group that will convert the court.

“We’re bringing in a lot of resources, extra resources than we typically would between conversions and housekeeping, primarily,” Mann said.

“So, we’re going to have hundreds of people working on changing the court out. But really from the court to the concourse, from the floor to the ceiling, the entire building is being reset before the doors open, so that everyone is walking in and experiencing our world-class venue.”

The courts sit on top of the arena’s concrete floor. So the arena will use crews to build and take down the courts from the outside, working their way in.

“We’ll have two crews working on the Dream court on the outside, working their way in, and then once that’s up and out of the way, again we’ll have those same two crews setting down the Hawks court from the inside out,” Mann said.

“So it will go really fast because we’re able to have a lot more people working at the same time.”

Both the Dream and the Hawks use what Mann called zipper courts, and each piece will need about four people, with one person at each corner.

The team did a dry run on Friday before the big day to make sure they could execute everything safely and efficiently.

“Between communication, prioritizing safety, collaboration between all the departments, because not only are we changing out the courts, you know the house cleaning crew has to come in first, and they have to clean the court and clean up around the court before we can pick it up,” Mann said.

“And so, really making sure that there is essentially choreography of who goes first, where are they hitting first, and then where are they moving to get out of the way. And it has to be very precise.”

But Mann and her team are looking forward to tackling the challenge. Some of that execution will depend on help from fans who attend Saturday afternoon’s Dream game.

“The hope is that there’s a Dream win, first and foremost,” Mann said. “We want to make sure that people have the chance to celebrate that win and not feel like they’re getting forced out.