Larry Griffin
The soon-to-open Orlando City Soccer stadium will have a section of seats painted in bright, proud rainbow colors to celebrate and memorialize the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.
There will be 49 seats painted that way in total – one for each person lost in the shooting. They’ll all be emblazoned with the hashtag “Orlando United, ” and they’re placed in section 12, as the shooting happened on June 12 last year.
The rest of the seats are purple and white.
The club chose to do this to celebrate further and acknowledge Orlando’s status as an “inclusive, diverse and welcoming community.”
“We are here to commemorate and unveil the 49 rainbow-colored seats that will sit permanently in section 12 of our stadium as a constant reminder of the senseless acts of June 12,” said club founder Phil Rawlins. “These are regular season-ticket holder seats. We put them in section 12 because, obviously, we felt that was pertinent. It was June 12th last year when the tragedy happened. They are right down by the benches and will certainly be seen by everyone in the stadium.”
