Lumen Field - Seattle Seahawks Stadium Guide

Lumen Field, home of the National Football League’s Seattle Seahawks, is the loudest outdoor stadium in the world. According to Guinness World Records, the stadium set the record for loudest crowd at 136.6 decibels in 2013 and 137.6 decibels in 2014, which is approximately the same amount of noise as a jet engine.

The Seattle Seahawks fans are often so loud that it can shake the ground so much that it reads on a seismograph at the nearby Pacific Northwest Seismic Network station. The first time this occurred was in the 2010 playoff game, when running back Marshawn Lynch scored a touchdown on a 67-yard rushing play. The event was called “Beast Quake”, due to Lynch’s nickname of Beast Mode.

The stadium gets that loud thanks to a tiered seating structure and a partial roof to protect fans from the elements, but not the field. Lumen Field uses cantilevers — a rigid beam, plate or truss that is supported at only one end — to stack the seating and roof elements on top of each other to save space for fans and limit the views obstructed by any support pillars. It is a design that is used commonly in older hockey stadiums and top minor league baseball stadiums, but not as much in NFL stadiums.

This approach was needed for two reasons. The first is that the land Lumen Field sits on is some of the smallest in professional sports. Built on the old Kingdome that used to host both the Seahawks and Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners, that area had to be split to host Lumen Field and T-Mobile Park, so each team could have their own stadium. This design maximized seating and allowed for open areas above the end zones for video boards and a view of the Seattle skyline.

The second is that it was what team owner Paul Allen wanted. Allen bought the Seahawks franchise to keep the team in Seattle, but wanted to have an open-air venue with an intimate atmosphere. He covered additional costs for funding, but wanted a state referendum to fund the majority of Lumen Field. The referendum passed, using various hotel room taxes, state lottery and metro parking taxes to pay for the stadium.

Ellerbe Becket was the main architect on the project, with Loschky, Marquardt & Nesholm Architects working on interior projects like suites. The final result was a 68,740-seat field for the Seahawks, and a 37,722-seat stadium for the Major League Soccer Seattle Sounders.
The Sounders are the other major tenant of Lumen Field, a nod to the huge influence of soccer in the Pacific Northwest. The stadium hosted the MLS Cup in 2009 and 2019, numerous international games and is a major part of the United States, Canada and Mexico’s combined 2026 World Cup bid. The largest crowd for soccer was 67,385 between the Sounders and arch-rival Portland Timbers in 2013.

Lumen Field has also been called Qwest Field and CenturyLink Field in the past, but remained on the same naming rights contract since the stadium was opened. Qwest was acquired by CenturyLink and then rebranded into Lumen, which is why the initial deal stands. Lumen has naming rights through 2033. The Sounders also have the ability to have a sponsor for the pitch during soccer games, but currently does not have a sponsor.

Below is a seating plan of Seattle Seahawks's Lumen Field:

Lumen Field offers paid parking in the Lumen Field Event Center Garage and the North lot. However, they do not allow parking for RV’s or other oversized vehicles. Be sure to arrive in plenty of time as it is allocated on a first come first serve basis.

The nearest airport to the stadium with regular flights is Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It’s just a 20-minute drive from the stadium, or you could take a 40-minute journey on the Link Light Rail which departs every 15 minutes.