THE FULL PITCH
ADAMS PARK Wycombe, England Images: PRiME Media Images, Clearglow Sport, Landways
A
dams Park, the home of Wycombe Wanderers FC, has undergone a huge transformation during what has been a turbulent year, allowing the club to welcome fans back to a whole new experience delivered by state-of-
the-art technology. All visitors to Adams Park can now enjoy a new, concert-quality digital audio system throughout the stadium, high-performance Wi-Fi, giant LED screens, a digital perimeter system and a number of new systems to improve ground safety and security – all supported by a long-life digital and power infrastructure delivering guaranteed levels of performance. The club engaged Landways to design, fund and install the new systems to help realise owner, Rob Couhig’s ambitious vision for a great match day experience. Chris Smedly, Chief Executive at Landways, takes up the story: “Landways was introduced to Rob Couhig before he completed his majority share acquisition of Wycombe Wanderers. Coming from the USA, Rob was aware of how good connectivity platforms could add value to sports clubs and their fans, and he was keen to put in place a high-performance and reliable network at Adams Park. “After visiting one of the company’s other stadium projects and understanding the wider range of technology systems Landways was able to provide, Rob asked for a detailed survey and proposal.” Rob added: “When we came to the UK, we visited a number of other clubs to see how their digital systems were performing. We were amazed to find that most clubs had no viable way for fans to connect with them when they were at the ground with local mobile networks overloaded and the few existing Wi-Fi systems providing either very poor or no service at all. Landways was the only business that was able to demonstrate to us that they could deliver a highspeed, reliable service, which not only compares well with the best US systems, but actually exceeds them. They are a natural fit with our ambitions.” There was a clear aim in terms of what Rob wanted for Adams Park, as Chris explained: “Stadium-wide Wi-Fi was the first system Wycombe Wanderers wanted to deploy in order to support a planned strategy for adoption of new digital services throughout the stadium. Landways worked with the club to develop the requirements, including coverage areas, user groups, data modelling and expected adoption rates. From this, we agreed what constitutes
040
WWW.MONDOSTADIA.COM
