Actual construction of the wall began last night. The wall will be 60 feet long, making the long wall of the arena. The first 8 feet and last 8 feet of the wall will be solid all the way to the ceiling, this is where the doors into the arena will go.
The other 44 feet in the middle will be built 8 feet high with one support beam going up to a truss.

As you can see in this picture, we are building every 8 x 8 section with a 14 ft beam connected. This will allow a large viewing area with use of a 4 foot catwalk behind the wall, while still having enough strength to support the weight of the grid and all the barriers.
We were very worried about how to connect the studs to the truss in the ceiling, which we could not figure out how to do until someone ventured up there. This was a job for Kel.

We were worried about what he was going to find up there. Brian has never gone up there since buying the place in 2002. And you have to understand this is a pole building standing in the limbo between farmland and the city. It is getting cold out, but we expected a mess of cob webs and bat droppings. But there were none to be found, the attic was pristine!
So we found the truss we are attaching our wall to. It will require a cut in the drywall ceiling, but we can patch that up when we are done. I was happy to see the attic fully insulated. There is even empty electrical conduit with boxes for us to run new wire for any circuits we may need.
Besides the attic exploration and wall construction, most of the time was spent demolishing a small room in the corner. This was important because I am using that wood as part of my new wall.
Now that we have our plan, and our sections coming together, it won't be long before this wall is up. Now we just need to get Brian's old T-Bird out of the way. If only he could find the keys...