Belgrade Arena

Belgrade Arena *(Serbian: Београдска арена / Beogradska arena) is one of the largest European multi functional indoor sport arenas located in Belgrade, Serbia. It is designed as a universal hall for many sports events, including basketball, handball, volleyball, tennis, athletics, and a hall for cultural events and other programs. With the total space that covers 48,000 square meters, and a total capacity of up to 23,000 seats (for handball events; standard 20,000 seats), it is among the largest indoor arenas in Europe. The complex consists of one big hall, one small hall and a parking lot with capacity of 4.800 vehicles. Belgrade Arena will be the host venue for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest
Source: Belgrade Arena Wikipedia

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Construction of Belgrade arena started in 1989 when Belgrade was chosen to host World Basketball Championship of 1994. Unfortunately, though the city overcame initial problems with financing such a project, due to sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the championship had been moved to Toronto and building of the arena was slowly continued.
It was finally opened in 2004 for for the Diamond ball tournament and Belgrade finally got the right to host The European Basketball Championship 2005. However, the official opening of the arena didn’t happen until November 2006 when it hosted a concert of American hip-hop star 50 Cent.

Building of the arena lasted for full 15 years and its cost is estimated at €70 million.
In total, only 13 events took place in Belgrade arena so far which is somewhat more than 30 days of usage which is not enough for it to be profitable. When there are no events in the place, the arena has fix costs of 1,5 – 2 million euros per year. Its director says that it needs minimum of 120 operating days per year which is not impossible since the arena has no actual competition in the neighboring countries.
At the moment, Belgrade arena is financed by the city but another solution will have to be found soon.

Only five arenas in Europe are bigger than Belgrade arena. It has 19.982 seats while The Kölnarena, Germany has 20.000, Merksem arena, Belgium – 21.000, Sinan Erdem Dom, Turkey – 22.500 and SCC Peterburgski, Russia has 25.000 seats.