Allegiant Stadium

Allegiant Stadium’s roof features a massive 350,000-square-foot translucent dome made of ETFE supported by a complex stainless-steel cable-net truss system. It significantly helped the venue achieve its official LEED Gold Certification.

The ETFE material allows 8-10 % of natural daylight to filter through while blocking out nearly 90 % of the harsh, radiant desert heat. This keeps fans comfortable while greatly reducing the need for air conditioning. The lens-shaped roof is suspended by 100 locked-coil steel cables in a crosshatch pattern, creating a lightweight yet rigid structure spanning over the field and lower grandstands. The roof of Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas was built and fully completed between late 2019 and April 2020. 

Desert daylight without desert penalties:
Las Vegas demands strong control of heat gain, yet the stadium concept benefits from daylight and an open-air feeling. A translucent ETFE roof enables daylighting while keeping a sealed, conditioned environment.

Structural strategy: cable-supported roof system
The stadium features a translucent, cable-supported roof system. ETFE is well suited to long-span, lightweight roof concepts like this, where low mass supports efficient structural design and helps maintain a bright, daylit interior.

Construction sequencing and enclosure:
On large ETFE roofs, the enclosure is typically completed in clearly defined installation phases. The ETFE elements are integrated directly into the structural concept – highlighting that ETFE contributes to the building envelope’s performance, not just its appearance.

Fine-tuning light transmission to control heat and glare:
Mortenson (a major stadium builder) describes printing as the solution used to address roof performance needs at Allegiant — printing a pattern under the top ETFE layer of each “pillow” to reach the required balance between daylight and solar control.