Movistar Arena (Bogotá)

As El Campín Coliseum

The estate on top of which the arena and neighboring buildings (such as El Campín Stadium) are built was donated to the city by Leonilde Matiz de Camacho and Luis Camacho Matiz, wife and son of Nemesio Camacho respectively, on 9 December 1937.^[8]

In 2011, following 16 years of lease to the private sector, the coliseum came back to the hands of the city government.^[9] On 19 January 2011, the District Institute of Recreation and Sports (IDRD by its Spanish-language initials) was informed in Bogotá City Council that the stage required reinforcement and technical improvements that required the IDRD to reduce the coliseum's capacity, thus recommending the city government the demolition of the stage,^[10] all for the construction of new installations for the city.^[11]

Faced with the possibility of demolition, some citizens opposed it, manifesting that the building had an important architectonic and historic value for the city.^[12] Due to these circumstances, the city government contracted a series of technical and feasibility studies that would help take a decision.^[13]

Renovation

On 14 January 2015 the IDRD and the Mayor of Bogota announced the "coliseum" would be renewed completely over the following two years. It would be a multi-event arena named Arena Sponsor Bogota which will have all the amenities needed be able to accommodate more elaborate events.^{[citation needed]}.

The upgrade expanded the arena's yearly capacity to more than one million spectators every year, as the new facilities allowed for quicker turnaround times, enabling it to host more than 90 events annually.^{[citation needed]}

The renovation works themselves started in 2018.^[14] While the administration of the stadium was still in the hands of the IDRD,^[15] its operation was put in the hands of the Colombian branch of Spain's Telefónica (behind its brand Movistar) though a 20 year-long public-private alliance starting in 2018.^[16]

As Movistar Arena

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The Israeli flag projected in the façade of the Movistar Arena

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On 11 October 2023, four days after the October 7 attacks and in the first days of the Gaza genocide in Palestine, the arena projected the flag of Israel over its façade. Following outrage in social media over the belief the city government was behind the projection, the arena's Twitter account said that the projection of the Israeli flag was something done as "an act of human solidarity" by the communication team of the arena's administration without involvement of the city government whatsoever, as the arena is now administered by private company Colombiana de Escenarios.^[17][18][19]