Six days before the launch, the sculpture suffered the first of three visible structural problems as the tip of one of the spikes detached and fell to the ground.

Legal action to repair the sculpture was started by Manchester City Council a year later, resulting in an out-of-court settlement totalling £1.7 million.

[4][5][6] B of the Bang originally stood 56 metres (184 ft) tall[1] with 180 hollow tapered steel columns or spikes radiating from a central core.

B of the Bang was located next to the City of Manchester Stadium at Sportcity, in Beswick, at the corner of Alan Turing Way and Ashton New Road.

[1] Prior to the construction of Aspire at the University of Nottingham, B of the Bang was Britain's tallest sculpture at well over twice the height of the Angel of the North,[16] which stands at 66 feet (20 m).

[15] The sculpture was constructed in Sheffield[7] by Thomas Heatherwick Studio, Packman Lucas, Flint and Neill and Westbury Structures.

[17] In November 2008, this culminated in an out-of-court settlement being reached between Manchester City Council, the project's designers Thomas Heatherwick Studio Ltd, and the engineering and construction subcontractors Packman Lucas Ltd, Flint and Neill Partnership and Westbury Structures Ltd.

[2] Acting on a report in January 2009,[25] the city council recommended that B of the Bang should be dismantled and placed in storage until funds could be raised for its safe reinstatement.

One possibility involved the replacement of the steel spikes with alternatives made from carbon fibre, although the report underlined the necessity for extensive testing.

[28] In January 2009, Antony Gormley, creator of the Angel of the North—to which B of the Bang is often compared—spoke out in support of the sculpture, stating that, "It is a great tribute to Manchester that this ground-breaking work was commissioned.

[30] More substantial hoarding was erected around the site and demolition firm Connell Brothers Limited began removing the spikes with oxyacetylene cutting equipment.