mondo stadia Issue 1

THE INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATION FOR TECHNOLOGY IN STADIA

SIGNAL IDUNA PARK

Borussia Dortmund’s home ground has its audio system revamped.

ISSUE 1

AL THUMAMA STADIUM

The latest designs of the proposed FIFA World Cup 2022 venue in Qatar.

SCOTT WILLSALLEN

Auditoria’s main man discusses his vast experience in delivering stadium events.

Innovative install solutions. The new TW AUDiO i-Series.

C O L O G N E

MADE IN GERMANY

|

G E R M A N Y

www.twaudio.com

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3 CONTENTS

CONTENTS 4 IN DISCUSSION - Airstar

IN PROGRESS 6 AL THUMAMA STADIUM Doha, Qatar 8 RAIDERS STADIUM Las Vegas, USA 10 STADION POLONII Warsaw, Poland 12 IN FOCUS - Community Professional Page 18

Page 6

Page 28

INTERVIEW 16 OLIVER SAHM Bosch Communication Systems

Page 38

36 SCOTT WILLSALLEN Auditoria

INSTALL 18 SIGNAL IDUNA PARK Dortmund, Germany 24 KAUFFMAN STADIUM Kansas City, USA 28 HERSHEY CENTRE Ontario, Canada 32 BOSUILSTADION Antwerp, Belgium 38 CARVER-HAWKEYE ARENA Iowa, USA 44 KRASNODAR STADIUM Krasnodar, Russia 52 LANXESS ARENA Cologne, Germany

ISSUE 1 We’re delighted - and very proud - to present the very first issue of mondo*stadia.

To create a new title for this particular part of the industry seems like a natural choice, especially given the huge array of exciting projects within stadiums, arenas and sporting venues across the world.

The world of sport generates memories like nothing else and, with coverage now, quite literally, 24/7, the headlines and hype often overshadow other hugely important aspects.

This is where we feel mondo*stadia comes in - we want to showcase the technical innovations, the groundbreaking designs and hard work that goes into creating these spectacular sporting venues where we all enjoy those memorable moments.

We hope you enjoy our first issue...

SAM HUGHES ASSISTANT EDITOR

56 GROUPAMA STADIUM Lyon, France

IN DETAIL 26 ADAM HALL GROUP Defender Cable Protectors 31 ATLONA OmniStream 50 CLEAR-COM Eclipse HX 55 RENEWED VISION ProPresenter Scoreboard 62 ABSEN XD10

EDITOR: Rachael Rogerson-Thorley: r.rogerson-thorley@mondiale.co.uk ASSISTANT EDITOR: Sam Hughes: s.hughes@mondiale.co.uk SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER: Jamie Dixon: j.dixon@mondiale.co.uk ACCOUNT MANAGER: Laura Iles: l.iles@mondiale.co.uk PRODUCTION: Mel Robinson, Dan Seaton CEO: Justin Gawne: j.gawne@mondiale.co.uk FINANCE DIRECTOR: Amanda Giles: a.giles@mondiale.co.uk CREDIT CONTROL: ar@mondiale.co.uk GROUP CHAIRMAN: Damian Walsh

Mondiale Publishing, Strawberry Studios, Watson Square, Stockport SK1 3AZ, UK Tel: +44 161 476 8340 mondo*stadia is published in September, December, March and July by Mondiale Publishing Limited, Strawberry Studios, Watson Square, Stockport, SK1 3AZ, United Kingdom. www.mondostadia.com www.mondostadia.com

Extraordinary Projects Demand Extraordinary Solutions

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5 IN DISCUSSION

IN DISCUSSION Founded in 1994, Airstar has since become the world leader in designing and manufacturing inflatable technologies. Luke Baudouin, Events Lighting Manager for the French company, discusses their extensive work within stadia.

Airstar has become the world inventor and leader in manufacturing lighting balloons since we were founded in 1994 by Pierre Chabert, who introduced his innovative lighting solution on a global scale.

Today, Airstar design and produces inflatable technologies for a whole range of sectors, from lighting and architecture, through to aerospace.

The company has 180 employees overall with 22 offices in 13 countries, as well as three production sites in France and the USA. In terms of our work within stadia and sporting arenas, we are often contacted by agencies and event companies who represent a sporting club or a particular sponsor. In the UK, we predominantly are involved with projects within football and rugby, with opening ceremonies, cup finals, season openers and testimonials, among others all covered.

The most popular Airstar product suited for stadia and sporting arena around the world is the Skyflag, which is a helium-inflated blimp

that measures 12-metres long and 2.5-metres in diameter, with a helium capacity of 60m3. The Skyflag gives you the ability to fly a 10-metres x 12-metres flag vertically – and is operated by two technicians, who are harnessed directly at opposite ends of the blimp. This allows them to have total movement control of the blimp and flag, allowing them to elevate the flag and bring it down whilst walking on the pitch in only a few minutes.

As well as the Skyflag, we have used other inflatables in stadiums, such as the Saturn which is best described as a giant doughnut. This balloon is operated by five technicians and has an acrobat, who is lifted by the balloon due to the huge amount of helium used to inflate it.

When it comes to the process of creating these projects, there are many things that have to be taken into consideration.

The first part is to discuss the practicality of using a Skyflag in a stadium. For example, we have to determine if the stadium has big enough entries www.mondostadia.com

and exit tunnels. We need tunnels to measure at least 3.5-metres high and four-metres wide to allow us to enter and exit the pitch without obstruction the view of the fans in the stands.

Secondly, we have to negotiate costs to see if it is affordable for the client. The costs include the hire of the Skyflag, the flags themselves, helium, technicians, as well as the usual living and travel costs.

Once we have gone through this, we then discuss the position of the display and any choreography we may need to do once it’s on the pitch or live on television. The choreography is a really important part, as we need to know specific timings of when players are entering the pitch, television camera angles and, most importantly, when we need to access and exit the pitch.

We typically have one person overlooking the performance, who will guide the technicians to ensure that the timing and choreography runs smoothly.

This process has worked well on numerous occasions when it comes to stadium projects, such as the French League Cup Final at Stade de France, the Guinness Pro12 match at the Aviva Stadium and the Guinness Pro12 Grand Final at Murrayfield Stadium, as well as the Manchester City new badge launch and South Stand opening at Etihad Stadium.

With so many successful projects completed, the Airstar team has become experts in terms of understanding the physics behind using helium to lift acrobat’s flags and even cameras.

We are able to work fast in terms of design and innovation when it comes to new products, which really sets us apart. Many of our jobs are often decided upon within the last month of the event being organised, so we are used to working within tight timeframes.

In terms of the future, with more time between projects and a greater understanding of our products from stadiums, clubs and event organisers, we are looking to continue the innovation of our products, which will allow us to deliver displays that are truly unique and able to add the wow factor to all kinds of events across the world.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of mondo*stadia magazine.

6 IN PROGRESS

IN PROGRESS A closer look at the upcoming stadiums and sporting arenas.

AL THURMAMA STADIUM DOHA, QATAR

The design for Al Thumama Stadium, the the sixth proposed venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, has been revealed by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC).

The stadium, which is designed by Qatari architect, Ibrahim M. Jaidah, Chief Architect at Arab Engineering Bureau (AEB), is inspired by the ‘gahfiya’ headdress.

H.E. Hassan Al Thawadi, SC Secretary General, said: “We’ve always been very careful to combine the past with the future in our designs.

The gahfiya is a continuation of that theme.

It’s a blend of our heritage and culture, and a commitment to the future.”

Hassan went on to say that the Al Thumama project would put a focus on Qatari talent.

“Our vision with this World Cup was always to complement and assist in developing local talent, and shed a light on local industry,” he added. www.mondostadia.com

“Ibrahim M. Jaidah is a very well-known architect in Qatar and we believe he has the talent, the passion and the commitment for this project.”

The Al Thumama district is located in Doha’s southern suburbs, 12km away from Hmad International Airport. The stadium itself will be built on pitches currently used by the Qatar Football Association.

The plan is for the stadium to seat 40,000 fans in 2022, with the capacity to then be halved to 20,000 in legacy mode and the excess seats donated to a nation in need of sporting infrastructure.

Construction work has already begun, with the stadium due to be completed in 2020. The main contractor is a joint-venture between Qatari company, Al Jaber Engineering and Turkey’s Tekfen Construction.

AEB, the company responsible for the schematic

7 IN PROGRESS

design, is the oldest architectural and engineering firm in Qatar. Its extensive portfolio includes the Embassy of Oman in Qatar.

Ibrahim believes the stadium will be an important symbol in Qatar’s emergence as a global sports hub.

“The design is a nod to the past, while offering an exciting glimpse into Qatar’s tomorrow,” he expla,ined. “In Qatari culture, the gahfiya forms an important part of every young boy’s pathway to adulthood.

“This rite of passage inspired my vision for the stadium’s design. It is an arena that symbolises Qatar’s youth and its emergence as a major player on the global sporting scene, ready to welcome the world in 2022.”

The stadium, which fans will access via dedicated bus services from a nearby metro stop, will feature state-of-the-art cooling technology and

world-class accessibility facilities.

Post-tournament, it will house a range of amenities, including a boutique hotel and branch of Aspetar Sports Clinic. The stadium precinct will become a community hub, featuring facilities for numerous sports, including handball, tennis and swimming, among others.

Engineer, Hilal Al Kuwari, Chairman of the SC’s Technical Delivery Office, said: “Given its rich cultural inspiration, this is another fantastic design that everyone in Qatar will be proud of.

“This design is a welcome reminder of the historical bonds that unite the Arab world as one people. The SC, along with the main contractor and numerous stakeholders, will work tirelessly to ensure this stadium captures the imagination and leaves a strong legacy for the people of Al Thumama.”

www.mondostadia.com

Above: The breathtaking plans for Al Thumama Stadium All pictures courtesy of Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy

8 IN PROGRESS

RAIDERS STADIUM LAS VEGAS, USA

One of the obstacles standing between the Raiders and their proposed move to Las Vegas has been cleared, with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board unanimously approving the team’s lease.

There were some serious doubts, right up until a week before the decision, about the lease being done in time for the board’s meeting, which would have been a huge setback in the grand plans. If the lease had not been approved, there was a chance that the Raiders Stadium would have been delayed for a whole year - meaning that it would have opened in 2021, rather than 2020.

The lease for the stadium has to be signed in order to be approved by all remaining NFL owners during the Chicago meeting in May. If that had not occured, then the next opportunity would have been as late as October. Now, as it www.mondostadia.com

stands, if the owners give the lease their approval - which should be a formality at this stage - the ambitious $1.9 billion football stadium can officially go ahead.

The Raiders’ lease in Vegas runs for 30 years, which means the team will be locked to Sin City through the 2049 season. Until now, Raiders have never stayed in one city for 30 years straight. Once the lease runs out in 2049, Raiders will have an option to extend it by five years for a total of four times, potentially staying in Las Vegas for 20 additional years.

With all but one major hurdle left to clear, Raiders should see groundbreaking of their stadium in January of 2018. Of course there is a lot of paperwork to be delivered before then, as outlined in the recently released time frame.

The concept for the new Raiders Stadium was delivered by Manica Architecture, who used

9 IN PROGRESS

to same design that was put forward for the Carson Stadium, with the key difference being the location of Nevada, Las Vegas rather than California.

There is another significant difference in terms of the function of the structure, too, with the Las Vegas plans revealing that the venue will be domed rather than open air. The reasons being to increase the commercial potential of the stadium and to efficiently protect the visiting fans from the desert heat in Nevada.

However, despite the dome plans, one end will still remain open, as detailed in the initial designs from Manica Architecture, which will provide an impressive viewing deck that offers spectacular views of the neighbouring Las Vegas strip.

The Raiders Stadium will also feature a horseshoe-shaped seating arrangement, with a 120ft tower situated at the centre of the open

club end that will house a ‘flaming cauldron’ in Al Davis’ honour.

The south end will be built hovering above the ground, this will allow a retactable natural turf field to slide out and rest in the sun on nonmatchdays.

A wide variety of open clubs, lounges and private suites throughout all levels of the stadium will ensure a luxury experience for spectators, too.

The overall site will accomodate stadium, on-site parking, tailgating amenities and a mixed-use commercial development. It’s location near to the freeway and the airport allows for easy access and adequate surrounding parking.

The plans are elaborate from Manica Architecture, however, should all go to plan, it will certainly be impressive.

www.mondostadia.com

Above: The impressive Raiders Stadium, which is due to be completed in 2020.

10 IN PROGRESS

STADION POLONII WARSZAWA WARSAW, POLAND

Stadion Polonii Warszawa, which was officially opened in 1928, is the home ground of Polish football club, Polonia Warszawa. A redesign for the historic ground has been in the pipeline for some time, however, the different plans have been thrown into disarray over the past decade.

In fact, the latest plan is the second this year alone, with the first having been presented earlier this year by then-president, Jerzy Engel, who is no longer associated with the club since they were relegated.

The latest reconstruction plan for Polonia Warszawa’s stadium has been released by the municipality of Warsaw and it’s fundamentally different to the somewhat ambitious plans of the past. Now, the promises of a 30,000-seat ground and retractable roof have gone and www.mondostadia.com

been replaced by a practical design that is to be financed by the taxpayers.

The reconstruction plan will see the old, historical stand of the Warsaw old town-based stadium, which was used as a training ground at Euro 2012, joined by three individual stands that lends itself to a football layout. The initial designs will see two of the new stands on each end be almost identical, with 2,000 covered seats. The third stand will see the Kamienna (the stone stand), the home of many ardent Polonia Warszawa fans, reconstructed. The Kamienna redesign will hold 3,500 seats, which will bring the Stadion Polonii Warszawa’s capacity to just over 12,000 in total.

The floor space within the stadium will increase, too, with an extra 2,500-metres to be added on,

11 IN PROGRESS

accommodating new toilet and catering facilities for the visiting fans. There is set to be an indoor running track going under the Kamienna too, as well as new maintenance rooms.

As with the plans of the past, there are question marks over the viability of the plans, with some noting that the municipal plan doesn’t include any corporate facilities that would be vital in terms of maintaining a new stadium.

The truth is that Polonia Warszawa, despite being the oldest sports club in Poland’s capital, are currently experiencing a fallow period on the pitch, with the side languishing in the fourth level of Polish football. Even though the plans are much more conservative, it is unlikely that the club will be needing 12,000 seats in the near future. The plans need increased commercial

potential to go along with the stadium’s location to make it a success. If not, the club may well be unable to maintain a larger - and, naturally, more expensive - stadium on their own.

But, for the time being, the initial schedule will see the Stadion Polonii Warszawa project spread across five years. All the documentation and permissions are to be approved in 2018, which will later be followed by a phased contraction plan on each of the three new stands that are planned.

So, if all goes to plan, Polonia Warszawa will be playing at a redeveloped Stadion Polonii Warszawa by 2022. Either way, it’s one to keep a close eye on.

www.mondostadia.com

Left: The latest rendering of Stadion Polonii Warszawa.

Right: The proposed indoor running track underneath the new Kamienna.

12 IN FOCUS

IN FOCUS A closer look at the sporting venues installed with Community Professional.

WEJHEROWSKA STREET POOL WROCLAW, POLAND

As the city of Wroclaw in Poland prepared for The World Games in July this year, the Wroclaw Investment Company decided to refurbish the existing outdoor swimming pool at Wejherowska Street and add a brand new indoor venue. The two served as one of the main aquatic venues for The World Games.

Tommex Żebrowscy Sp. J. was commissioned to design and install the sound system for both the indoor and outdoor pools, together with the main hall, fitness club and gym, which are combined in the complex. To meet the diverse needs of the venue, Tommex chose a combination of Community’s D Series and R Series loudspeakers.

The audio system operates via a Dante network, which connects three main points; the commentary stand with an Ashly digiMIX24 and Dante card, the main electronics rack and a sub rack for the fitness club and gym. All loudspeakers are powered by Ashly amplifiers.

Marcin Zimny, Commercial Director of Tommex,

explained the choice of loudspeakers: “For the main hall, fitness club and gymnasium, we used D Series DS8 and DS5 loudspeakers.

With modern, unobtrusive styling, they deliver outstanding quality, intelligibility and output for their compact size.

“For the pool areas, R Series were the clear choice for their power, voice quality, and all-weather capability, essential for the environment of swimming pools, whether indoors or out,” he continued. “Accurate dispersion patterns were also a major consideration in providing even coverage whilst avoiding reflective surfaces in the highly reverberant spaces.” For the main indoor pool, a combination of R.5-MAX and R.35-3896 loudspeakers were selected, with R.15COAX covering the spectator stands. The R.15COAX was also used for all areas of the outdoor pool.

“A world-class venue demands outstanding quality and long-term reliability and this system has been designed to deliver both,” he concluded.

BLACKTOWN INTERNATIONAL SPORTSPARK’S SOFTBALL CENTRE BLACKTOWN, AUSTRALIA Originally developed as the playing and training venue for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games softball competition, Blacktown International Sportspark’s Softball Centre continues to host a wide programme of prestigious national and international tournaments and training.

Maintaining its facilities as the premium venue, the Softball Centre recently commissioned Sydney-based integrator, Kayder, to install a new main PA system. The brief was to provide a durable all-weather system with superior speech intelligibility, while maintaining extended response for full range music when required.

Working together with Hills, an audiovisual distributor in Australia and New Zealand, the system was designed utilising Community R Series loudspeakers chosen as the optimum solution to meet the client’s criteria.

Blake Kirby of Hills commented: “In addition to outstanding intelligibility, sound quality and allweather reliability, the advantage of R Series lies in its wide range of models, which provides all the throw and dispersion pattern combinations needed to optimise any system for complete and consistent coverage. For the Softball Centre, the coverage required four R.5HPs, 14 R.5-94TZs and www.mondostadia.com

two R.35-3896Bs.” For ease of use with flexibility, Kayder designed the system with full Crestron control. System DSP is handled by Q-SYS and QSC amplifiers were chosen to power the Community loudspeakers.

“A leading international venue such as the Softball Centre deserves a class-leading sound system, and that’s what has been delivered,” concluded Blake. “With glowing reports from the installer and end-user alike, the system will provide the best possible experience for fans for many years to come.”

PERFECT BALANCE XY SE R IE S P R O F E SSIO N A L SP E A K E R S Pioneer Pro Audio partners with legendary Belgian football club RAFC to create a new match day experience for fans with superb sound.

“I haven’t been to another stadium where the sound is so warm; it’s actually like you’re in a nightclub.”

Serge Van Hove, Head of Marketing, RAFC

Pioneerproaudio | pioneerproaudio.com | #madeintheuk

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RAFC | Antwerp | Belgium

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13 IN FOCUS

BRIAN LARA CRICKET ACADEMY SAN FERNANDO, TRINIDAD & TOBAGO Inspired by the record-breaking batsman, Brian Charles Lara, many young cricketers in Trinidad and Tobago dream of playing their national sport at international level. This dream has been brought a step closer to reality for many by the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (UDeCOTT) with the completion of the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, a state-of-theart competition venue and training facility for the development of world-class cricketers.

Just north of the city of San Fernando, the Brian Lara Cricket Academy is the first state-of-theart cricket training facility to be constructed by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. The Academy includes a 15,000 seating capacity stadium, club seating, lounges and executive boxes as well as exhibition space. The equally impressive field comprises a quick-drain professional grade cricket pitch and a 70-metre radius playing field, encompassing six pitches on the main playing field. The Academy also incorporates 12 outdoor practice pitches, official and team locker rooms and a gymnasium.

A request for quotation for the audio systems for the new venue was released and the directors of Streamline Systems, who had worked on four other stadia in the Caribbean, were quick to respond. With a window of just one month to audit the stadium and design a modern system to meet the Academy’s needs, the team went straight to work.

To get the design done on schedule, Streamline Systems’ directors, Michael Pereira and Clifford Beckles, met with the client to ascertain the requirements and to make their own recommendations based on their industry experience. Streamline Systems was assisted by Community’s Technical Applications Group (TAG), who supported the short timescale by reviewing EASE plots, direct sound pressure level mappings and auralisation files as needed.

After several meetings and presentations with the client, Streamline was awarded the contract

with a strict deadline of 110 days for completion and commissioning of the system. Considering the manufacture of all components, shipping, customs clearance, installation, testing and commissioning of the system, this would have been a tight deadline but, to make matters worse, the original system then had to be completely redesigned. The original proposal was for a distributed system, using the leading edge of the canopy trussing to fire back to the seating areas, but this was deemed a problem due to lack of catwalk access.

Streamline Systems, again supported by Community’s TAG team, worked fast to design a new system that would meet both the original requirements and the 110-day deadline. Still following a distributed configuration, the loudspeaker locations were all moved to positions behind the listeners where access was more practical for the installation and maintenance.

Care was taken to ensure that coverage was optimised for the new locations and that audio projecting across the playing field was kept within acceptable levels.

This final system required more, but smaller, cabinets than the original design and the team selected Community’s R.5 and R.35 loudspeakers for the mainstay of the system. A total of 120 R Series loudspeakers were used for the spectator and playing areas of the project, with a further 52 C Series ceiling loudspeakers for the indoor areas.

Community R6-51MAX loudspeakers were chosen for the long throw from the main stands over to the grass areas, which also required coverage. “The R6 packs six 12-inch for LF, six two-inch for MF and six one-inch for HF, with a total power of 4,710W,” commented Michael.

“That really gets the power across to the field with excellent pattern control to below 100Hz.” A total of 16 Community R2SUB subwoofers were used for low frequency reinforcement for the system.

Streamline turned to Electro-Voice for amplification and audio processing. With the www.mondostadia.com

stadium split into North and South stands, two Electro-Voice NETMAX N8000 units were linked to allow for crystal clear audio over the OMNEO/ Dante network. Linking of the two units was done over fibre optic cable and a Cisco managed network.

Basic system control is done using EV’s TPI-5 5.7inch touchscreen controls which allow each stand to be turned on and off independently, with more advanced control via a full-sized touch screen computer. This feature is facilitated by 10 Furman ASD120 sequential switchers with five per rack location, which means that each amplifier rack can be switched on via the touch screen units without having to be on the other side of the facility. While the stadium was outfitted with a standard fire alarm system, Streamline took the audio system a step further with automated system override and voice evacuation.

A simple analogue mixing unit was used on the front end of the system. Michael explained the reasoning for this: “There was method to what some may construe as madness. This was done so that basic operation of the system would be very simple for the end user or commentator as need be. A much larger and more robust feature set is available via the touch screen computer but not all operators would need to utilise this set on a regular basis, as such a much simpler interface was provided for day to day use.” Professional grade Shure wireless microphone systems were used to allow for free use of the wireless microphones throughout the playing field by officials and commentators alike.

He concluded: “Every detail was put in place to ensure that a fully operational system was delivered to the client and this was fully achieved, while keeping 10% below the agreed contract sum and on time. The Community loudspeakers provide outstanding intelligibility and uniform coverage and the system combines excellent flexibility with ease of use.” www.communitypro.com

16 INTERVIEW

Right: Oliver Sahm.

Far Right: The Hard Rock Stadium in Miami - an exciting project completed by Oliver and his team.

OLIVER SAHM Director Marketing Application Design at Bosch Communication Systems

How did you first get into the industry?

I was always enthusiastic about sound reinforcement systems and started right after my master studies at the Technical University of Berlin, which is where I worked with 3D simulation software on my first sound system designs. I’ve been in the industry for 22 years now, with my jobs ranging from assistant designer and technical support, right through to consulting on sound system designs.

When and why did you join Bosch?

I originally worked for TELEX / EVI Audio from October 2000 until we were acquired by Bosch Security Systems in 2006, which also offered new opportunities.

What does your role consist of?

The scope of tasks and responsibility is quite complex and comprehensive.

My official title is Director Marketing Application Design in our business unit - Bosch Communications Systems.

Together with my team of 28 passionate audio professionals, I’m responsible globally for technical system design support, technical training and technical support when it comes to system commissioning and operation. All these tasks are performed for our business segments: professional sound, public address, voice alarm and conference systems for all our brands, which include Bosch, Dynacord and Electro-Voice.

The team is based in several regional offices so we can provide support across all time zones for our regional sales partners and we share our expertise and competences globally within our team and with other departments. That gives us a unique opportunity to provide dedicated support for either specialised or focused solutions, as well as for complex and comprehensive projects combining pro sound, public address and conference in one customer-oriented solution.

What attracted you to focus on stadiums in terms of your career?

Stadiums are often in great locations, with seriously impressive architecture in many cases, while the excitement of the fans for the sport and the teams creates a great atmosphere. This creates the interesting challenge in terms of how you can support this experience with great audio. The sound reinforcement systems are an essential part for the atmosphere in the main bowl and the other entertainment areas, while public address and voice alarm systems are hugely important in terms of safety. This wide span of

requirements that have to be considered in individual solutions and the fact that this is a growing and truly global business makes it a continuous and exciting challenge.

Do you find that there are certain areas within which you work more?

From my point of view, we see primarily the regional focus and we also see increased global interactions, which requires communication across regions, making it necessary to travel to meet clients personally with both parties to discuss opportunities.

Stadiums are a global business and we have consultants in many countries all over the world that are working on stadium projects for global events like in Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. So, these consultants might ask for support and co-operation with us using our products in design.

Honestly, for me, it doesn’t matter where the consultants and the projects are located as we’re a global team and we are supporting the Bosch communication business globally. It fits the nature of the stadium business, which, again, is a global effort from the design phase until the realisation of the building.

How does a project start out for you and your team?

Because of our extensive experience with working on many projects, we have a lot of contacts in the industry. Also, we are stadium partner with the ESSMA organisation, which offers additional opportunities to exchange experience and to get aware of latest trends and upcoming requirements Either our sales colleagues, regional partners or someone in the region is contacted by a local architectural consultant or we are aware of involved consultants and get in touch with our regional colleagues and their local partners.

What are the main things you have to take into consideration on a project?

Of course, we have to take into account specific standards and regulations in the respected countries where these stadiums will be built, as well as adhering to health and safety regulations and sport specifics regarding what events will take place in what stadium. It starts very simply, like an indoor dome, for example, so the stadium speakers in this regard must be at a certain height to allow the ball to be freely played from one side of the stadium to the other. In football, we abide by UEFA and FIFA regulations, too.

With regards to the building and architecture we have to take a lot

www.mondostadia.com

17 INTERVIEW

of technical and acoustical aspects into account: architectural shape, reverberation times or materials and room acoustics, possible locations for loudspeakers, electronic rack rooms, digital networking of equipment, operator specific requirements. In most stadiums, you have individual requirements from those who are finally operating the system and also from those who have to provide service and maintenance.

All these aspects shall be considered as early as possible to assure a comprehensive success for all parties in the end.

So, the room acoustics and the building itself is still the most relevant basis for any of these installations. If the building itself and the acoustics within the building don’t provide a minimum set of parameters, you can install whatever you want, however, it will never be as a good as it is required or expected to be.

Do you find the UEFA and FIFA regulations restrictive?

As with many of these regulations, there are always two sides; the positives and the more challenging aspects of these regulations. The positive aspect is that a specific quality is defined for various aspects.

However, when we look into the specific parameters, which are actually coming in place, with sound pressure levels getting higher and higher, speech transmission index (STIs), speech intelligibility values are increased over the previous years and so on. It can get to a point where you know that these results can’t be achieved with electroacoustic means only.

We must also come to a point where we ask whether the project is still achievable in regards to physics and, of course, the economical factors. As an example, loudspeaker arrays might get that big and heavy that the roof and the whole structure will be unable to house such equipment and required room acoustic measures have an impact on the architecture and budgets as well. So, many of these aspects can be a cause for concern when discussing the magnitudes of projects with the architect and various consultants when attempting to differentiate between expectation and realisation.

Are there any difficulties that you experience on a regular basis - and what are they?

With the complexity of all the aspects we regularly experience, it’s natural that sometimes not everything is aligned as early as it should be.

It’s a challenge because sometimes you have different parties who take care of different parts of the project so, for example, voice alarm systems positioned in the back of the house are a part of the safety design, in which a consultant also takes care of the fire detection system and other safety-

related designs. At the same time, it makes a lot of sense to use the same installation for background music distribution and entertainment solution in the VIPs area, so it makes sense to align these aspects as opposed to communicating with individual parties, therefore, cutting cost and time.

Which projects have you been working on recently?

One of the most exciting stadiums in the past year was the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. In addition, we were successfully involved in three smaller stadium projects in France recently.

Do you have any interesting projects coming up in the near future?

We are involved in several great opportunities also related to global sport events in the coming years. An interesting new installation of an ElectroVoice stadium solution will be installed in Craiova, Romania, too, which we are looking forward to a lot.

What would you say has been your favourite project?

Unfortunately, we are not always allowed to talk about all reference projects we were involved, so I would say that, in general, we had a the most exciting projects with major global sports events in 2006, 2010 and 2014. Also, the Philippine Arena, which is one of the world’s largest indoor domes, was definitely one of the favourites.

What would you say is the next big thing in terms of stadium sound design?

Flagship stadiums are becoming bigger, which increases the challenge in terms of being able to provide the sound system solutions that deliver an increased quality performance that is uniform across all seats and areas.

So, to provide increased electroacoustic performance over larger distances presents a big challenge for the future regarding sound system design.

In general, we will see a trend towards more digital networking of the different system parts, as well as with adjacent systems like ProSound, PAVA, suites and VIP area entertainment and multimedia as well as conferencing and broadcast solutions.

The multimedia and multipurpose use of the stadium will become more important to create a required return on investment in the future. To provide the technical solutions to avoid the underuse of these spaces isvery important. I think the multipurpose aspect is of vital importance. www.boschcommunications.com

www.mondostadia.com

18 INSTALL

SIGNAL IDUNA PARK Dortmund, Germany

Above: The exterior of Signal Iduna Park, the home of Borussia Dortmund. www.mondostadia.com

Officially opening as the new home for German giants, Borussia Dortmund, in 1974, Signal Iduna Park - or Westfalonstadion, as it was originally known - has become one of the most famous football grounds in Europe.

Signal Iduna Park has an impressive capacity of 81,360, with over 24,000 standing on the Südtribüne - the formidable Yellow Wall - which is Europe’s largest terrace for standing spectators.

The capacity is reduced to 65,849 for all-seated international fixtures, though, the overall number makes it the third-largest European club stadium behind the big two in Spain - Camp Nou and Santiago Bernabeu.

After complaints about the intelligibility and coverage within the stadium - particularly the insufficiency of the low frequency response - the

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decision to completely overhaul the system was made. As an iconic European stadium that’s delivered some truly incredible sporting moments, it’s only right that Signal Iduna Park was given a audio upgrade to match.

The whole process to significantly upgrade the stadium’s audio system started back in 2013. The planning and design of the system was a joint venture between RCF’s 10-strong Engineering Support Group, led by Product Marketing Manager (Install Sound), Antonio Ferrari, and RCF Group German Subsidiary, led by Georg Hofmann and Norbert Wessel, working in conjunction with integrators fulfil engineering, headed by Norbert Labudda. It was fulfil engineering’s planning department that initiated, co-ordinated and supervised the whole project at Signal Iduna Park.

The aim for the team was to achieve higher intelligibility, even pattern control - with extended low frequency capability - and unobscured sightlines. However, most important was to link the voice evacuation and stand systems into a unified network that could be monitored, errorand health-checked remotely. This solution was provided by RCF. To provide the sound right across Signal Iduna Park, 14 RCF clusters of 14 TTL33-A MKII line array elements are used. Each TTL33-A enclosure comprises of two eight-inch subwoofers for the low section, a horn-loaded eight-inch cone driver for the midrange and three one-inch compression drivers for the tops, controlled by the DSPsteered output stage and powered by Rockville 1,250W RMS three-way amplifiers from a 750W www.mondostadia.com

power supply.

At the top of each hang is a TTS26-A subwoofer, which provides further control. RCFs original solution had not called for a subwoofer, however the team knew that in addition to extending the frequency range, the subwoofer would also function as an end-fired cardioid, as well as providing control of the LF down to 60Hz, helping to reduce reflections.

The EASE 4.3 predictions provided the design architecture to develop a fully-optimised system, setting the splay angles and placements of the hangs - which are spaced equidistant, some 20 metres apart. Four clusters each are mounted down the East and West tribunes - firing into the upper and lower tribunes - while three each cover the South and North stand.

20 INSTALL

Loaded with RCF’s proprietary RDNet DSP and additional electronics for monitoring, the inherent software is programmed to integrate the new PA/VA evacuation system - fulfilling the EN 60849 standard for performance requirements.

Aside from the benefits of an advanced integrated DSP, the RCF Engineering Support Group also promoted the advantages of a single active line array source over individual speaker distribution, with the idea being that it would deliver consistent coverage and eliminate phase cancellation caused by the sound arriving in different zones at different times.

“Once we had floated the idea of an active approach we needed to select the ideal system. We knew the TTL33-A was a workhorse in live audio and had 100% confidence in the TTL33-A system,” said Norbert.

“We know it has an amazing touring pedigree - with six drivers, three-way amping and powerful DSP built in. Although the idea of having an extended low frequency performance was derived from the live concert business, it was the best possible solution.”

All 196 of the RCF active line array elements are weatherised, with the cone

drivers and wooden enclosure coated, too.

The latter is painted with polyurea both inside and out, while all metallic items are fabricated in stainless steel.

With the main PA along the four stands complete, the sound at Signal Iduna Park has improved immeasurably, however, in a bid to future proof the ground, fulfil engineering left the existing EAW sound system in the four corners for a potential upgrade. This has now been implemented, with the previous two-channel amplifiers replaced by Powersoft’s eight-channel, process-controlled solution. Powersoft’s Ottocanali amplifiers were specified in combination with the advanced X Series, which were supplied by German distributor, Laauser & Vohl.

With the first Ottocanali 12K already successfully implemented in driving the PA in front of the stadium, it was natural to use the same platform inside the stadium, too.

The task at Signal Iduna Park was to optimise the existing triamped EAW KF750, EAW KF650 and the ASR665 in the centre roof and infield, as well as in the corners.

This was accomplished in four racks of DSP-equipped amplifiers and other equipment. Eight Ottocanali - six 12K4DSP+ETH and two 8K4DSP+ETH - plus four X8 www.mondostadia.com

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DSP+ETH amplifiers are assigned to the various frequency bands of the system, using analogue inputs only.

The final specification for the stadium was determined by Marc Kocks, Powersoft’s Business Development Manager Install, who used the Italian company’s proprietary Design and Comparison Tool to do so.

“This tool enabled us to propose the most efficient solution,” explained Marc. “This calculated solution allowed us to compare the new Powersoft data with the old system. The outcome

immediately convinced the user of the a huge saving in mains power and cooling required when compared with the previous system.”

The specification also took into account the additional LF required to accurately convey the pulsing ‘heartbeat’, which is transmitted through the loudspeaker theme before the start of each match.

“We used the existing EAW presets and Powersoft provided us additional settings for the ASR that were not already in place,” explained Timo Boerger, fulfil engineering’s Technical Designer.

www.mondostadia.com

“The entire system is monitored and controlled via Armonía software - and in particular we are using the presets / delays / gains and mute groups in the DSP.” In terms of designation, the long stands (West/ East) are equipped with an Ottocanali 8K4 (HF), an Ottocanali 12K4 (MF) and an X8 (LF) for the Infield PA (which comprises nine KF750 point source enclosures per side). The short stands (South/West) are equipped with two Ottocanali 12K4 (MF/HF) and an X8 (LF) for the two KF 650 (2-way), 10 x ASR655 (2-way) and the six KF750

22 INSTALL

(3-way) in the corners. All signals are transmitted by fibre optic on an ATEÏS network, and every amplifier input is fed from its own dedicated output on the matrix, while each stand and infield PA has its own bus from the mixing desk.

“We wanted the amplifiers to be monitored and controllable. The fact that they have a GPO to trigger an alarm, when something is not fully working, was also important,” added Timo. “The Powersoft amplifiers offered everything we needed for this installation.”

Elsewhere, Daktronics provided the LED displays at Signal Iduna Park, having worked with the team at Borussia Dortmund for many years. After visiting Daktronic’s installations in Basel and Zurich, the club decided to replace its original equipment in two corners of the stadium, as well as place two additional screens in alternate corners.

In all four corners, there are now 4.50-metres

x 8.20-metres screens, with an additional fifth display measuring 3.30-metres x 5.85-metres located on the façade of the north stand. Each Daktronics display provides perfect image clarity and wide viewing angles for fans in the stadium, with the latest in outdoor digital video, high contrast LED technology lighting up the each corner.

Christopher Backhaus, Daktronics GmbH Project Manager, said: “The screens look stunning in the stadium. The 16mm is the perfect resolution for the fans to be able to connect to the content during the match; we look forward to watching Dortmund goals again and again on these new screens.”

With a state-of-the-art audio system and high-quality LED displays in place, Signal Iduna Park now has the technology to match its prestigious position in Europe - making it one of the go-to stadiums for the biggest sporting events.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION INSTALLER: fulfil engineering BRANDS: RCF, Powersoft, EAW, Rockville, Daktronics WEBSITE: www.rcf.it / www.powersoft-audio.com / www. eaw.com / www.rockvilleaudio.com / www.daktronics.com

www.mondostadia.com

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25 INSTALL

KAUFFMAN STADIUM Kansas City,USA The 37,903-seat Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri underwent a $250m renovation for the 2009 season, which included an expansion of the concourse, new amenities, and state-of-the-art technology that make game day even more exciting. The K, as the stadium is affectionately known, has welcomed more than 79,611,876 fans since it first opened in 1973, making it the sixth oldest stadium in MLB. Part of the upgrade in 2009 involved installing more than 450 displays for back-of-house support in the luxury suites, and around the concourse. The displays are fed by an IPTV system, delivering live game feeds and digital signage campaigns to engage fans out of their seats, with the ultimate aim of bringing in additional revenue. As the Kansas City Royals the stadium’s resident baseball team - prepare to celebrate its 45th season this year, some further upgrades were made more recently, one of which was related to the IPTV system.

Unfortunately, many of the media players from the previous installation were starting to fail, so the venue made the decision to source a cost-effective, durable replacement. The new system was needed to be reliable and future proof. In addition to the media players failing, the IPTV system had other shortcomings too, for example, it suffered from significant delay that degraded the viewing experience, and the digital signage system was cumbersome in creating and dynamically updating digital signage content.

The aim with the new system was to create a solution capable of delivering low latency video around the concourse TVs and suites, feature an easy-to-use interface for efficient digital signage creation, as well as the flexibility to address any arising content demands.

After accessing all the options, the team at The K settled on VITEC’s EZ TV IPTV and Digital Signage Platform. It more than met the requirements. Capable of making use of the existing IP infrastructure, the EZ TV Platform offered unparalleled value and performance. EZ TV is a broadcast-grade solution that combines IPTV distribution with powerful digital signage

capabilities into an all-in-one integrated platform. EZ TV‘s flexible, open-architecture is ideal for the ever-changing video, marketing and sales of today’s sports venues such as the Kauffman Stadium. With proven reliability, superb video quality and under one second of delay streaming 1080p full HD content to any screen - TVs, PCs and mobile devices - EZ TV seamlessly integrates to the existing network environments and is able to manage any type of video content including streams generated by third party encoders.

The EZ TV Platform has multiple functions depending on the area of the stadium. If a fan is out of their seat, thanks to the EZ TV Platform they can still enjoy the game and other video footage. In the private suites, the automatically updated electronic program guide (EPG) and video-on-demand capability provides access to non-linear content and delivers a unique experience that rivals their home setup. Digital signage is highly flexible with the new system - eye-catching digital signs can be created quickly, so too can menu updates integrated to POS vendors. The onboard administration and analytics tools also empower the venue organisation with campaign information vital to pulling in untapped revenue streams.

Now that the upgrade is complete, VITEC’s EZ TV IPTV & Digital Signage Platform is fuelling content into every display in the stadium, providing fans with eye-catching content, superior video quality and lower latency for game-day feeds as they walk around the concourse. The new VITEC system has also improved capabilities for the staff who work in the administration and control room at The K. EZ TV offers a comprehensive set of tools for managing content packages, channel lineups for the different and central control and troubleshooting of any end-point used in the building. It also provides unique features that allows them to continue to enhance the game day experience at the venue.

“The K is the crown jewel of Kansas City, and one of the best ballparks in the country. Video failure and stale campaigns were tarnishing the fan www.mondostadia.com

experience,” said Brian Himstedt, Senior Director - Information Systems at Kansas City Royals. “We selected VITEC’s EZ TV IPTV and Digital Signage Solution because it delivered incredibly reliable and high-quality, low latency streams and digital signage creation tools that make coming to the K unforgettable. We’re able to really use our screens to add value and a new dynamic that we didn’t have before.”

Alongside the IPTV system upgrade, Advanced RF Technologies, Inc (ADRF) - a provider of in-building wireless solutions - addressed the stadium’s need to enhance its wireless coverage and capacity systems to improve voice and data usage for the fans.

Knowing that providing adequate cellular service would be tricky, ADRF took on the challenge, with the help of The K contracting team.

Collectively, they considered and reviewed RF design, partner coordination, installation and technical support before going ahead with the integration.

The final solution comprises an ADRF ADX Distributed Antenna System (DAS) deployed to robustly support all four Tier 1 wireless service providers. The modular architecture of the DAS system enables fast, easy, hot swappable upgrades from the initial single carrier system to the eventual Neutral Host deployment. A combination of medium and high power ADX DAS Remote Units all fed by a single Head End complex were strategically placed to overcome aesthetic and design constraints.

Although, not upgraded recently, the technology focal point of this stadium is without doubt the spectacular 84ft by 104ft Crown Vision HD scoreboard. The icing on the cake for this scoreboard is the interactive crown, which rises about 40ft above the Crown Vision screen - a visually iconic feature for the Kansas City stadium.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION BRANDS: VITEC, ADRF WEBSITE: www.vitec.com / adrftech.com

26 IN DETAIL

ADAM HALL GROUP - DEFENDER CABLE PROTECTORS Whilst your eyes are mostly focussed on the stage at a concert, the silent star of the show lies at your feet, often unnoticed by the audience: the yellow and black Defender Cable Protectors from Adam Hall Group.

Since 1995, they have been the standard at events and in industry. Available in various series with different load capacities, they protect electricity and signal cables or fire hoses from pedestrians and vehicles.

“Almost every professional knows Defender cable protectors. After all, we are the market leader in Europe,” said Markus Jahnel, COO/ Managing Director at Adam Hall Group.

The worldwide-patented cable protectors are made in Germany and feature securely locking covers with self-cleaning hinges. The modular protection systems for cables or hoses are available in various designs and can accommodate cable or hose diameters of up to 113mm.

Defender is a long-standing participant at big events, concerts, on construction sites, in film and television and in a wide range of industrial applications. Even the emergency services appreciate the robustness of these reliable cable protectors.

Defender products are designed and manufactured in Germany from extremely durable, recyclable thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), in accordance with fire protection class B2, and are oil-, acid- and petrol-resistant. A B1 option is also available, which is flame-retardant in accordance with DIN4102. Its working temperature range is from -40°C to +60°C, and its hardness is 88 Shore ± 4A. Strict inspections of the materials and production processes ensure that the cable protectors meet high-level specifications and rigorous quality standards.

Defender cable protection systems are DEKRAapproved and certified in accordance with DIN 31000 and EN 61537.

In addition to its comprehensive range of products, Defender also offers single-unit production and bespoke system solutions, developed in accordance with customers’ requirements, including complete tooling manufacture.

Defender’s unique custom service can meet almost all demands: special angles, special radii or intersections. Even production of individual solutions in small numbers is no problem.

Defender is one of the few brands to offer an in-house automated plastic welding service. All www.mondostadia.com

kinds of special lengths, modifications of existing cable protectors, angle elements or end pieces can be facilitated. Robust plastic-welds ensure durable and sturdy connections.

The custom service can also provide completely customised Defender cable protection systems.

Successful examples worthy of mention here are Defender SUBTERRA - for the underground hydraulic lines of Halliburton Oilfield Services in Argentina, and Defender RACE RESULT - for the integration of transponders for recording times at professional racing events.

The innovative Defender LUX series can be upgraded with optional LED light hoses to provide a safe solution for both indoors and outdoors. Highly transparent yellow-tinted covers provide maximum luminosity in dark environments.

“We are very flexible when it comes to customers’ wishes and offer a unique fiveyear warranty for Defender products. We are also very close to the market place and have great understanding of the varied needs of our customers,” concluded Markus.

www.defender-protects.com

Photo of Beijing Stadium: © Arup, Chris Dite

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28 INSTALL

HERSHEY CENTRE

Coming up just shy of its 20th anniversary, Hershey Centre in Mississauga, Canada has definitely stood the test of time having hosted over 3,000 events and welcomed more than four million guests since it first opened its doors back in 1998. Hershey Centre is home to the Mississauga Steelheads of the Ontario Hockey League, and was also used as a venue for the Toronto 2015 Pan & Para Pan Am Games. For the event, the main arena at the Hershey Centre hosted combative Pan Am sports including judo, taekwondo, wrestling, and karate. Additionally, the centre has welcomed international artists such as Green Day, Russell Peters, Chris Brown, The Tragically Hip, B.B. King, The White Stripes and Hedley.

Ontario, Canada

Above: A Fulcrum Acoustic upgrade for the Canadian ice hockey venue, as it prepares to reach 20 years in operation. www.mondostadia.com

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Due to the age of the venue, it was decided that the technology was in need of an upgrade to pull it in line with the 21st century. The centre required the new sound system to achieve enhanced output, intelligibility, fidelity and a low frequency response professional sports fans have come to expect, along with the ability to customise coverage for a diverse array of events.

Design Specialist, Dave Clark - on behalf of Engineering Harmonics - took up the challenge of meeting the brief. “Along with Engineering Harmonics, I carried out the design for the original sound system, installed when the building opened in the late ‘90s. The City of Mississauga decided to reprise the relationship,” he explained. “Needs had changed. Originally

designed for a professional hockey ‘farm’ team and a community programme, the arena now also hosts a professional basketball team farm team, junior Olympic-level international skating events and professional boxing. Tighter zoning was needed for television broadcasting and, of course, overall SPL and subwoofer requirements went up.”

Dave worked with the client - the City of Mississauga and its building operations partner, SMG - to assess the evolved and unique requirements. He and the team also looked at the constraints imposed by the unusual roofline.

“We upgraded the original EASE model, making sure that new and existing audience zoning and seating patterns were covered,” Dave continued.

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“We designed the job in Revit for complete understanding of the sightlines around the curves of the hockey dasher boards and glass, and to reliably document the new conduit system needed to handle the more numerous zones.”

The final design was based around Fulcrum Acoustic CX1265 12-inch coaxial speaker clusters.

A total of 16 double CX1265 clusters hang above the playing surface perimeter to cover the arena’s upper and lower bowl, with additional clusters deployed into each of the low-roofed end zones to avoid obstructing scoreboard sightlines, plus speakers to cover the arena seating portion of the private suites. “The Fulcrum speakers we specified are perfectly packaged for the smallto-mid-sized arena format. They rig easily,” said Dave. “Fulcrum’s EASE data is very accurate, so there were no adjustments by ear in the field from the modelled geometry. The Revit families worked well. Previous experience with Fulcrum in a stadium setting gave us confidence that the speakers would sound great. A no-brainer.”

Two ‘blue line’ clusters of four stacked Fulcrum Sub115 15-inch subwoofers ringed with four CX1265’s provide steered low frequency support and playing surface coverage. Four compact GX1226 12-inch coaxial speakers can also be raised into the hollow scoreboard for world-class figure skating competitions in which musical timing and imaging are crucial, as well as for other centre stage events such as concerts and boxing.

Loudspeaker management for the 5,400-seat multi-purpose indoor arena is taken care of by a QSC Integrated Core 500i system platform, which is capable of directly accommodating eight Q-SYS input and/or output cards for a total onboard channel capacity of 32 channels.

“The networking of the Q-Sys is excellent, as is the programming interface and adaptability to other digital systems through interface cards. For Hershey Centre, it was important to set up fairly small zones for various program requirements.

The zoning flowed easily from DSP to amplifiers.

It worked out very well.”

Summing up the audio upgrade, Dave said: “Engineering Harmonics’ Project Manager and Acoustical Consultant, Jeff Bamford, made things painless, as did the installation contractor, Solotech, and the electrical contractor, Danik Electric, who did great work to get the job done in a multi-contract environment before the hockey season opener and a figure-skating event was broadcast internationally. Solotech’s Mark Radu lent his considerable experience to both system programming and timing and EQ puzzles.”

In conjunction with the audio facelift, the LED lighting within Hershey Centre was also replaced.

For this Dave worked with Smith + Andersen, who designed the retrofit LED lighting. Obviously, the upgrade to LED offers huge energy and cost savings for the venue, as well as being more efficient for ongoing maintenance.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION INSTALLER / DESIGNER: Solotech, Engineering Harmonics, Dave Clark Consulting BRANDS: Fulcrum Acoustic, QSC, Daktronics, Smith + Andersen WEBSITE: www.solotech.com / engineeringharmonics.com / www.daveclarkconsulting.ca / www. fulcrum-acoustic.com / www.qsc.com / www.daktronics.com / smithandandersen.com www.mondostadia.com

“The main challenge during the installation was the simultaneous replacement of the lighting system with an LED system, differently distributed than the old system, so we had to re-assess the mutual shadowing interferences,” Dave explained. “The predictability of the EASE coverage and the ability to revise the Revit model to respond to the changes in the lighting placement were invaluable.”

Although not upgraded in line with the audio and lighting systems, a Daktronics video display completes the technology line-up at Hershey Centre. The Hershey Centre expressed interest in enhancing the fan experience while also bringing the largest display in the OHL (Ontario Hockey League) to their venue. “We worked directly with the arena on a design-build project for the interior displays, including the four-sided centrehung configuration. Each of the four main displays measure 9.5ft high by 17ft wide,” said Ryan Stratton from Daktronics. “All the displays can be seamlessly controlled through the integrated show control system. By combining the centerhung, hoist and control solution from a single supplier, Daktronics is able to provide a single contact point for support of their highly visible assets in the arena.”

There was a tight timeframe for this project but thanks to the project management capabilities of Daktronics, the installation was delivered successfully and on time.

31 IN DETAIL

ATLONA - OMNISTREAM The distribution of audio and video signals over data networks, also known as AV over IP or networked AV, offers virtually unrestricted scalability and flexibility along with the convenience and cost-efficiency of standard data networks. Atlona’s OmniStream AV over IP has been engineered from the ground up with features and capabilities that make it ideal as the AV signal infrastructure for interconnected rooms, multiple floors, or an entire building, venue or campus.

At its core, the OmniStream AV over IP product family is built to distribute 4K video, audio, and control over a standard Gigabit network.

It delivers the performance and dependability of traditional AV distribution, with the virtually unlimited scalability and cost-efficiency of integrating over IP networks. By overcoming the inherent challenges relating to cost, security, performance, image quality and the need to conform to IT-specific requirements, OmniStream is among the first AV over IP systems capable of fully replacing a traditional video distribution architecture, while delivering immediate and long-term ROI to enterprise businesses and organisations.

The OmniStream family consists of five distinct products, including a single-channel and twochannel networked AV encoder (AT-OMNI-111 and AT-OMNI-121), a single-channel and twochannel networked AV decoder (AT-OMNI-112 and AT-OMNI-122), and a two-channel Dante networked audio interface (AT-OMNI-232).

This enterprise-grade network platform also offers extensive levels of system redundancy and failover, AES-128 encryption, forward error correction, and other measures for reliable, secure IP content distribution.

The OmniStream line offers several industry-first features, including high-density, dual-channel encoding and decoding; redundant AV networks

and streams; encrypted content distribution; network error resilience; broadcast-quality 4K video compression with extremely low latency; and the ability to convey 4K video and Dante audio simultaneously over the same network.

More recent enhancements, including the of addition of UHD @60Hz 4:4:4 and HDR10 support for 4K video, are directly in response to quality-conscious customers seeking better video resolution, compression, and standards compliance. Since OmniStream will now handle 4K HDR10 @60Hz with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling and 10-bit colour, this ensures compatibility with Ultra HD Blu-ray, streaming media players and other emerging consumer video sources that deliver HDR content. In addition to HDR10, the latest OmniStream firmware upgrade will support additional HDR formats enabled in the HDMI 2.0a specification.

Other new enhancements include video wall processing, HDCP 2.2 compliance, and AES67 audio over IP interoperability.

In the AV universe, many enterprises and IP operations have already converged with IP across audio, teleconferencing and telephony. Video is considered the final hurdle. Atlona developed OmniStream to address the many technological and practical challenges of video convergence with IP networks. Therefore, OmniStream integrates easily into a new or existing Gigabit network infrastructure, and delivers the same reliability, performance and image quality expected of a baseband or HDBaseT video system. In addition to solving overall AV over IP integration challenges, OmniStream will streamline infrastructure, enhance connectivity, and simplify management, while enabling many new and novel AV system design and problemsolving opportunities now and moving forward. atlona.com/omnistream-av-over-ip www.mondostadia.com

• Support for 4K/UHD video resolutions with 4:4:4 Compatibility • High-density video over IP integration • System redundancy and failover • Secure content distribution • Highly robust and reliable service over networks • Low-latency AV content delivery • Power over Ethernet (PoE) support • High-density I/O (32x32) extends cost and value benefits • Video Wall processing • HDCP 2.2 compliance • AES67 Audio over IP interoperability

32 INSTALL

www.mondostadia.com

33 INSTALL

BOSUILSTADION Antwerp, Belgium The Bosuilstadion, which is located in the Antwerp suburb of Deurne, first opened its doors in November 1923, with an international between Belgium and England being the first game played at the stadium.

Bosuilstadion is the home of Belgian side, Royal Antwerp FC, who decided to build the stadium after their old stadium in Broodstraat became too small. In the first few decades, the Bosuilstadion hosted regular clashes between international rivals Belgium and The Netherlands, which earned the venue the nickname ‘Hell of Deurne’.

Over the years, the stadium has been revamped, though it still holds a fearsome reputation in terms of atmosphere, with Royal Antwerp fans being known as some of the most vociferous in the country.

In 2015, Patrick Decuyper took over as CEO and majority shareholder at RAFC, his goal was to improve the performance of the club both on and off the field - with the match day experience of Bosuilstadion being a huge part of that.

“Football has changed from just a game to an experience,” Patrick explained. “Before the games we have entertainment and DJs - and, after the match, it’s party time.”

This is where the audio system in place at the stadium became an issue - it was outdated and had deteriorated beyond use. In other words, an upgrade was desperately needed.

“It was so old, we could have put it next to the trophies in the club museum,” added Serge Van Hove, Head of Marketing at RAFC. “We weren’t able to speak through the microphone to the fans - they couldn’t hear anything in parts of the stadium. We had to change something and we had to do it fast.”

The club management approached Pioneer Pro Audio to offer a solution to the problem, but, as discussions progressed, an idea to do something totally different for an outdoor stadium came about. The plan was to create a sound system that would deliver clear audio for announcements at high volume and a nightclub-

like sound when DJs play before and after matches.

“We needed to deliver the full range of audio signal as opposed to just the mid and high you’re normally used to in a football stadium,” Pioneer Pro Audio’s Manager, Alex Barrand, explained.

With dual objectives for the audio system, the team was presented with a number of challenges.

“When you go to a football stadium, they usually have long-throw sound systems. That’s okay for announcements, but it’s just not good enough to play music on,” said Kristian van Haute, Pioneer Pro Audio’s Manager in Belgium.

The Pioneer Pro Audio team needed to create a system that would work for both purposes, offering even coverage in each stand without sound drifting onto the pitch and avoiding delays that can occur in outdoor setups. Installation proved to be difficult, too, with the stadium’s age making hanging heavy speakers from the roof an obstacle.

Using acoustic simulation software, the Pioneer Pro Audio team was able to measure the intelligibility of the system before a single box was installed. This gave the club’s management team the reassurance that announcements would be heard clearly by every fan inside the Bosuilstadion.

The plan for the system was to mostly use double clusters of Pioneer Pro Audio’s 15-inch XY-152 box throughout the stadium. The largest stand, where the most vocal supporters sit, would have the most speakers as it was the largest area to fill, as well as some parts of the stand being exposed to the elements.

“We used six clusters of two 152’s, allowing 120º dispersion across that whole area per cluster array,” said Alex. “That allowed us to really push the levels out to the right areas dedicated to the hardcore fans.”

Due to health and safety laws in Belgium, only accredited companies can install suspended speakers at a stadium. The Pioneer Pro Audio team enlisted the help of local installers Kick www.mondostadia.com

Left: The stand at Bosuilstadion, equipped with Pioneer Pro Audio loudspeakers.

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APS, who were able to handle the job and get the work certified.

“We lasered all the metalwork and made custom brackets for the clusters to comply with the law,” said Karel Geukens, Managing Director of Kick APS, who oversaw the process.

“We also took great care to make sure things like the right types of bolts were used and safety chains were secured properly, and that nothing exceeded rules on maximum weights.”

Also, although the XY Series speakers are moisture resistant as standard, Kick APS made a custom weatherproof backing for each box to stop rainwater from entering at the terminal.

Elsewhere, the project at Bosuilstadion also included sound systems in three hospitality suites, with two of those also having custom-made DJ booths. A two-tiered area of business seats, which are sectioned off from the regular seats by a glass screen, has its own setup, too. Sound from the crowd is mixed with the announcements

and music played inside the stadium, broadcasting to the highest paying ticket holders behind the glass.

Powersoft amplifiers drive the entire sound system, with the K Series being the natural choice for the outdoor areas due to the capacity it gives to route the AES signal through a CAT-5 connection, hence significantly decreasing cabling costs. The AES signal is backed up by an analogue system, which will kick in, switching the amplifiers to analogue mode, if the digital signal fails in any area of the stadium.

“We run an AES loop all the way around the stadium, allowing a pure digital signal to run in a continuous loop. There’s no jitter, there’s no jumping around of signal, so it’s purely clean,” added Alex.

With the new Pioneer Pro Audio system now in place, Bosuilstadion offers an incredible matchday experience, with the high-quality audio solutions working in conjunction with the atmosphere created by the fans.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION INSTALLER: Kick APS BRANDS: Pioneer Pro Audio, Powersoft WEBSITE: www.pioneerproaudio.com / www.kick.be / www. powersoft-audio.com www.mondostadia.com

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36 INTERVIEW

SCOTT WILLSALLEN Audio Director & Sound Designer, Auditoria How did you first get into the industry?

I started out as a professional musician, I was okay at it, but others were much better, so I quickly drifted away from making music, and towards making music louder. I worked for an audio rental company in Sydney for a few years, then I went freelance for a while, then settled back into a full-time design and engineering role for an integrator in Sydney.

When and why did you start-up Auditoria?

In 2003, I was engaged as the sound designer for the Rugby World Cup Opening and Closing Ceremonies in Sydney. Immediately after that, I started on the Athens 2004 Olympic Games Ceremonies as sound designer and could see a strong future in major events. I kicked off the company in late 2004 when I got back from Athens.

The flight over to Athens for the tender interview was my first international trip, I had to get my passport hurried through so I had it in time. The significance and pressure of designing and delivering the sound for an Olympic Ceremony was completely lost on me. I was bursting with confidence and never had any doubt that I knew exactly what to do. I was 26 at the time, so I guess I can put that down to youthful confidence and determination.

Can you give us an outline of what Auditoria do?

We are a design consultancy specialising in audio, video, broadcast and show control systems - voice and data communications systems, control systems. We work with venue managers and architects to develop a clear understanding of what project success looks like, and translate that into technical systems to support the vision of the project.

On new building projects, we work with the architect and the design team to design these systems and coordinate the requirements into the architectural, electrical, mechanical and structural systems.

What does your role consist of?

I lead a team of very special people with massive brains. We work together to develop systems and experiences that create lasting memories. Being a small business, every day for me is different, from leader to designer, salesman to marketer, engineer to student. Our work covers many areas, but to simplify and summarise our work, we are engaged to solve complex problems in the arts cultural industries.

How do the stadium or sporting venue projects start for you and your team?

My first stadium project as designer was the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Sydney. I’d just finished my Masters in audio and acoustics and my dissertation examined the subjective preference of sound tonality in a stadium environment. In other words, what does a stadium audience prefer in terms of tonal balance.

The rugby was a great success and soon after the event, the creative and technical teams were engaged to design and deliver Athens 2004 Olympic Ceremonies. So I began a journey of making stadium events sound amazing and delivering innovate solutions to complex problems.

We can claim design credits to more Olympic Games ceremonies and major international ceremonies events than any other company or individual including Athens 2004, Melbourne 2006, Doha 2006, Vancouver 2010, Singapore 2010, Delhi 2010, Doha 2011, London 2012, Sochi 2014, Baku 2015 and Baku 2017.

What are the main things you have to take into consideration on a project?

Our work and process can be summarised in three words - listen, design and deliver. So, the single most important thing on any project for us is to listen and understand what the client wants out of a project and understand what success looks like. We do this by asking the right questions.

Another important factor for us is to be an enthusiastic and collaborative

www.mondostadia.com

37 INTERVIEW

contributor to any project. We regularly face situations of competing needs that require patience, cooperation and innovation to resolve. The key is to find the right solution in these situations, not determine a winner.

Environmental factors are an important consideration on any project, but especially so in a stadium that spends much of its time not in use. We also consider ease of access and maintenance to be an important factor in maintaining system performance, and reducing ongoing costs for the stadium operator.

Safe and efficient access to loudspeakers and amplifiers enables lower maintenance costs, encouraging more regular work in ensuring the system is performing at its best.

It’s important to us that the sound operator for a stadium have access to the right tools to deliver a great mix. This includes specifying the right microphones, consoles, replay equipment and system control interface to create a sound mix that works in a stadium environment of narrow dynamic range and variable background noise.

we were responsible for the system design, the implementation of that design required a great deal of work from many other departments to make it a reality. It was a unique situation of collaboration, willingness and determination from all departments of the ceremonies team to make it happen.

Our upgrade of the audio system at ANZ Stadium was a very satisfying project. My first experience in that building was back in 1998, just prior to the opening of the venue, I was involved in the first event in 1999, I spent months at the stadium in preparation for the Sydney 2000 Olympics and delivered my first major event as sound designer in the venue for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. I was determined to make ANZ Stadium sound better than any other stadium I’d heard and I’m pleased to say that we did. It is most certainly the best sounding stadium in Australia and arguably one of the best in the world.

This was made possible by the desire of the stadium operator to deliver the best audience experience possible.

Which projects have you been working on recently?

Unfortunately most of our work is under NDA until the project is complete, so there’s not much I can tell you about current projects. We have recently completed the Baku 2017 Islamic Solidarity Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies, which were staged in the Baku National Stadium.

We were also the audio consultants for the Pink Floyd - Their Mortal Remains Exhibition at the V&A which opened to excellent reviews.

What would you say is the next big thing in terms of stadium design?

So many things come to mind, but all share a common theme: the presentation of sport and entertainment in stadia is a high-quality pursuit that requires state-of-the-art facilities and technologies to engage the audience.

Greater use of visual display to activate stadium architecture is a hot topic and has been for a couple of years. This has an added advantage of helping brand a stadium for the home team, especially interesting for stadiums that host multiple home teams.

Some of the technologies we are exposed to during Olympic Ceremonies will eventually make an appearance in permanent stadium facilities in some form. One example is using field of play projection for sports lighting, enabling on-field graphics, blackouts and side-line advertising. www.auditoria.systems

What would you say has been your favourite project?

The London 2012 Olympic Games Ceremonies is my most treasured event project and the upgrade of ANZ Stadium - the Sydney 2000 Olympic Stadium - is my most fond installation project.

London 2012 was widely praised as one of the best sounding stadium events ever and it was due to the work of many people, including us. Whilst

www.mondostadia.com

38 INSTALL

CARVER-HAWKEYE ARENA

Constructed in 1983, the Carver-Hawkeye Arena is a 15,400-seat arena that is home to Iowa Hawkeyes men’s and women’s basketball teams.

As well as the University of Iowa’s basketball teams, the arena also provides a venue for their wrestling, gymnastics and volleyball teams.

Iowa, USA

The arena, which is named after the late industrialist, Roy J. Carver of Muscatine, Iowa, who donated $9.2 million to The University of Iowa before his death in 1981, has also hosted concerts, with notable acts including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and Stevie Nicks.

With the Carver-Hawkeye Arena being such an important venue for the area, it was vital that it hosted the various sporting events and concerts without any issues. With this in mind, the

Above: Pre-game at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena

www.mondostadia.com

39 INSTALL

decision was made to upgrade the technology within the arena.

Having recently installed a full sound reinforcement system at the University’s 70,000-seat Kinnick Stadium that offered huge benefits to fidelity, coverage and visceral impact, the team at University of Iowa once again turned to Danley Sound Labs to provide a solution for the Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Larry Lucas, from Anthony James Partners (AJP), designed and commissioned the new Danley system, with assistance from legendary acoustician, Doug Jones, who is now a member of the team at Danley. Parsons Electric, which handled the install of the system at Kinnick Stadium, secured the bid for the arena.

“Amazingly, Carver-Hawkeye Arena managed to

get by with the original installed sound system for over 30 years,” explained Dave Potts, veteran Field Systems Engineer at Parsons Electric.

“But that was obviously dated technology.

They were hoping for much better intelligibility, greater musical impact, and better user control.

The new system gives them all of that, and we managed to pull the old system out and put the new system in, in just six weeks. That included pulling new cable and negotiating a bunch of other contractors - they were replacing the scoreboards and making other renovations at the same time.

“For a while, we had to work around 14 boom lifts, cranes, and crane trucks on the floor - only five of which were ours.”

The Iowa City-based arena was equipped with www.mondostadia.com

eight loudspeaker clusters to cover the main bowl. Two of the clusters use a pair of Danley SH-96HOs each, with the remaining clusters include a pair of Danley SH-96’s each. In addition, two clusters of three Danley TH-118 subwoofers each provide tight low-end support.

To cover the floor, two more Danley SH-96’s fire straight down at either end of the basketball court, while 10 Danley SM-80’s create a far ring to deliver delayed coverage to the upper bowl.

Finally, Parsons Electric reconditioned existing speakers and their wiring in the concourse, separating them into eight unique zones and applying delay to time align them with the rest of the system.

To power the audio system, 14 new four-channel Danley DNA 20K4 Pro amplifiers are used, along

40 INSTALL

with comprehensive signal processing facilities for loudspeaker conditioning.

A QSC Q-Sys DSP system gives the Carver-Hawkeye Arena complete control of presets for different types of functions - including the ability to turn individual clusters on or off to scale to the size of an event - via an intuitive GUI that contains other vital system controls.

“AJP and Danley really nailed the design at Carver-Hawkeye Arena,” said Dave. “I’ve done a tonne of these type of arenas, and at first I was skeptical about whether we’d hit all the close seats with these angles.

But Danley’s pattern control is really well defined, and Larry and Doug were able to dial everything in so that the system covered precisely to the points they required.

“The boxes themselves sound great;

even before we dialed anything in, the intelligibility and impact were there. Of course, we listened critically and notched out a few problem frequencies that were interacting poorly with the room, and it became all the better. Once we had the delays and concourse system time-aligned, the whole system worked together as one unit, regardless of overall volume.

“I challenge anyone to walk into CarverHawkeye Arena and not come away impressed by the intelligibility and impact of its new Danley system.”

The upgrades didn’t just stop there, though, as Sound Concepts, the systems operator for the venue, specified a DiGiCo S21 digital console in a bid to get the same level of reliability and consistency that was achieved with the original system.

In addition, a DiGiCo’s Purple Box MADI/

TECHNICAL INFORMATION INSTALLERS: Parsons Electric BRANDS: Danley, QSC, DiGiCo, Daktronics, Musco Lighting WEBSITE: parsonscorp.com / www.danleysoundlabs.com / www.qsc.com / www.digico.biz / www.daktronics.com / www.musco.com www.mondostadia.com

41 INSTALL

Optical converter and a D-Rack, both housed in a single deployable case, were also installed at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

The DiGiCo S21, which was installed by audiovisual systems integrator, Parsons Audio, solves more than just the issue of durability, though, with the cost of the project having to be taken into consideration. Marvin Smejkal, President of Sound Concepts, having been aware of significant budget cuts to the original estimates, decided that the DiGiCo S21 - which offers incredible value - was the perfect choice.

“Nothing comes close to what the S21 can offer at that price point,” Marvin explained. “I knew I wanted a DiGiCo console for this project, but the budget wouldn’t have allowed for one of the SD series consoles. However, the S21 delivers so much functionality for an incredibly costeffective price.”

Discussing the use of the Purple Box fibre interfaces with the S21 and the D-Rack, Marvin added: “We needed to use fibre because of the limited amount of conduit and the long length of the cable run. The S21 package addressed that.

“So much of what the S21 can do - and that’s a lot - is included in the price. For a situation like this, with a limited budget but high expectations, the

DiGiCo S21 is the only real solution.”

As well as the audio system, AJP also designed the new LED video technology for the CarverHawkeye Arena, which was manufactured and installed by Daktronics.

“Carver-Hawkeye Arena remains one of the great college athletic venues and we were excited to work with Daktronics on upgrading our scoreboards,” said University of Iowa’s Director of Athletics, Gary Barta. “Adding state-of-theart video and audio equipment has made the student-athlete and fan experience even greater.

Hawkeye fans make Carver-Hawkeye Arena a special place and these enhancements will no doubt bolster the environment moving forward.”

The centrepiece of the LED video technology installation is the new four-sided centrehung video system, with two of the main displays measuring 14.5ft x 26ft and the other two displays at 9.5ft x 16.5ft. To provide crisp, clear imagery with wide angle visibility for every seat in the arena, the Daktronics displays feature tight, 6mm line spacing. The displays are capable of variable content zoning, which allows them to show one large image or to be divided into multiple zones. With this capability, the Carver-Hawkeye Arena team can highlight www.mondostadia.com

Above: The centrehung with Daktronics LED displays.

Left: DiGiCo’s Purple Box. Right: The DiGiCo S21 desk being used at the CarverHawkeye Arena.

42 INSTALL

any combination of live video, instant replays, statistics, game information, animations and sponsorship messages.

Four auxiliary displays, two at each end of the arena, have been installed as part of the upgrade, too. Two of the displays measure 9.5ft x 80ft, with the other two measuring 9.5ft x 48ft. An additional 3ft x 9ft display is utilised along the sidelines. There is also a total of eight digital scorer’s tables installed within the arena, too, which can provide content zoning.

The five auxiliary displays and eight digital scorer’s tables feature 10mm line spacing. They are also capable of variable content zoning as they provide fans with supplemental content and statistics, as well as creating opportunities to highlight sponsors throughout events.

“We appreciated the opportunity to once again partner with the University of Iowa,” said Matt Warnke, Sales Representative at Daktronics.

“This is an exciting new installation, which includes a centerhung being installed for the first time in Carver-Hawkeye Arena that not only

highlights our state-of-the-art technology but also our depth of engineering expertise. This new system will enhance an already great game-day environment.”

Elsewhere, Musco Lighting have helped CarverHaweye Arena in enhancing the entertainment and maximising its energy efficiency with the installation of an LED lighting system.

The Musco Lighting system provides the light quality needed at the venue, with a whole host of additional features, too. Customised optics have improved the visibility within the arena, preventing light from shining into the eyes of the players and spectators, while the light quality itself has created a stage-like atmosphere, as well as eliminating the flicker effect on slow motion replays. The control of the LED lighting system is efficient and easy to use, while a DMX control board can also be used for special effects and to sequence the light with the music.

Overall, the Musco Lighting system has reduced energy consumption at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena by 55% compared to the previous lighting

www.mondostadia.com

system.

“Musco Lighting is the premier athletic facility lighting company in the world and we are fortunate to have them ‘in our backyard’ based in Iowa,” said Damian Simcox, the Assistant Athletic Director of Facilities at the University of Iowa. “The new LED lights provide CarverHawkeye Arena with a natural light setting that is not only more pleasing for fans experiencing our events, but energy efficient and cost-saving for our department. Additionally, we now have the ability to turn lights on/off instantaneously and program them as a part of the game presentation.

“The Musco team and LED lighting system enhances our overall Hawkeye fan experience while making our facility more energy efficient.

We could not be more pleased with the end result.”

With the audio, LED displays and lighting all recently upgraded, the Carver-Hawkeye Arena will continue to be a huge asset to the University of Iowa, as well as the wider community.

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44 INSTALL

KRASNODAR STADIUM

Designed by GMP Architekten, with a capacity of 33,000 divided over two tiers - the upper tier being a wave shape - is FC Krasnodar’s new home, Krasnodar Stadium. Funded by the football club’s billionaire owner, Sergey Galitsky, the stadium design is a nod to a historic Roman colosseum, however, having being equipped with a state-of-the-art audio system and a 360º video screen, the stadium is far more futuristic than most.

Krasnodar, Russia

Above: The Unilumin video screen is 606-metres in length and covers an area of 4,676 sq metres. www.mondostadia.com

Edelweiss Audio completed the sound installation at Krasnodar Stadium following 18 months of listening tests, design negotiations, new loudspeaker developments and a large-scale installation. From the very beginning, the owners were determined that the sound system and the audio quality would be a priority.

45 INSTALL

The Funktion-One distributor tendered for the project in early 2014 and was invited to take part in a listening test alongside companies representing most, if not all, of the professional audio manufacturers active in arena/stadium sound. This was the start of an unusually detailed specification process. Having impressed the owners, Edelweiss was then invited back to attend a second round of listening tests featuring a shortlist of companies.

“A number of factors, not least the geometry of the stands, meant that a horn-loaded solution would work best,” explained Edelweiss Audio’s Technical Director, Andrei Kremenchugskiy. “We were looking at up to 90º coverage, which is very hard to achieve effectively using line-array.”

The owners were sold on the Funktion-One sound, which at the time was demonstrated

using Resolution 5s, and appointed Edelweiss as the audio contractor for the project.

The roof has two layers, which are split by a cavernous space. The architect originally wanted the loudspeakers to be positioned between these layers - a suggestion that would make most audio people wince.

Andrei consulted with Funktion-One’s Tony Andrews. Subsequently, there was dialogue between Edelweiss and the architect and a trip to a similarly designed stadium in Germany was planned. Funktion-One’s John Newsham joined Edelweiss and the owners for the trip.

The outcome went little way to supporting the architect’s argument, as the customer wasn’t particularly impressed with the audio quality at the German stadium. Therefore, a compromise was needed. www.mondostadia.com

Edelweiss originally wanted to use FunktionOne MSTs with smaller subwoofers, however, this plan didn’t align with the architect’s vision, so a new Funktion-One Evo configuration was developed.

Andrei worked closely with John and others at Funktion-One in the UK to come up with a solution. This resulted in the development of new customised product - the Evo 6EHQ. These specially-designed enclosures house four Evo 6 waveguides, arrayed two wide and two deep.

John recalled: “We spoke to Andrei and he explained that if we could get 90º vertical and 45º horizontal dispersion, then he could deliver a really good solution for the stadium. On paper, it looked like combining four Evo 6EHs would work the way we wanted but we needed to do some tests in order to find out exactly how to combine

46 INSTALL

them. We didn’t have the height available to just do a vertical hang.”

Working with Thomas Gude, John carried out some field tests at Funktion-One HQ in the UK. He continued: “For the horizontal coverage of 45º, we wanted to figure out whether coupling the mids or the high-frequencies would produce the smoothest result. In the end, the best solution was to couple the mids and let the high frequencies separate. We then developed a special cabinet to house the four Evo 6 waveguides fixed at the correct angles.”

A total of 18 Evo 6EHQ enclosures have been deployed around the stadium, approximately 20-metres apart. FunktionOne F215 Mk2 bass enclosures were installed between the Evo 6EHQs. Six standard Evo 6EH loudspeakers were

supplied for pitch coverage.

In one final twist to the sound design, a request for more bass led to the newly developed Funktion-One F124 24-inch bass enclosures being paired with the F215 Mk2s, to extend the frequency range down to 30Hz. The F215’s were reinstalled so they were now applied in pairs, which left nine gaps between the EVO6EHQ’s to be filled with the new F124’s, also installed in pairs.

To say this level of audio installation for a stadium is unusual would be an understatement. As Andrei pointed out, the coverage is very even across the stadium, with good intelligibility throughout. As each Evo 6EHQ cluster is split left and right, it’s possible to achieve stereo sound between the clusters.

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TECHNICAL INFORMATION INSTALLERS: Edelweiss Audio, Alpha-LED BRANDS: Funktion-One , Peavey, Lab.gruppen, Dataton, Unilumin WEBSITE: www.funktion-one.ru / www.AlphaLED.ru / www.funktion-one.com / peavey.com / labgruppen.com / www.dataton.com / www.unilumin.com www.mondostadia.com

47 INSTALL

have been installed for DSP - two units in control room - for redundancy - and one in each amplifier rack, which comprise Lab.gruppen C-Series amplifiers. Audio is transmitted over fibre lines between the control room and the amplifier racks via Dante. “We have had a lot of experience with MediaMatrix in the past and it was probably the main reason why we choose it,” said Andrei.

“The amplifiers were chosen for their reliability, good remote control and optimal quality to price ratio.”

Installed alongside the impressive audio solution is an equally spectacular video screen from Unilumin, which is a huge 606-metres in length and covers an area of a staggering 4,676 sq metres. The design and installation of the screen - similar to the audio system - was put out to tender and a number of companies placed a bid.

However, it was Moscow-based Alpha-LED that

won the contract, and in another likeness to the audio, Alpha-LED too, worked closely with the architect and owners of the stadium.

The design took Vladimir Venerov and the team at Alpha-LED six months to complete - and then an additional six months was needed for the installation. Due to the screen stretching the entire perimeter of the stadium, there was no margin for error and very high precision was required with the installation of each individual module.

And that’s not all, as Vladimir explained the next obstacle he had to overcome: “The screen sits between the upper tier and the roof of the stadium and every element had to lie up in sync.

The slightest deviation in the vertical alignment during installation would have led to an overrunning error, and as a result the upper or lower modules might not have fitted into place.”

www.mondostadia.com

It was a huge task, but one that was worth the effort, to produce 594 pieces of irregular and complex shape modules in order to completely replicate the wave-like shape, which arises from the stadium’s geometry. “We designed 56 types of modules,” continued Vladimir. “PCB boards and moulds were made for each specific type.”

This careful design and execution means that the screen appears unified within the structure.

Alpha-LED used Dataton’s WATCHOUT software - as well as 22 DVI ports - to deliver content for the video screen.

The screen itself comprises a total of 50,509,440 LEDs, which translates into 16,836,480 pixels not your standard LED screen installation by any stretch. In fact, the Krasnodar Stadium is probably setting its own standard now, to which other stadiums around the world will be compared to for years to come.

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50 IN DETAIL

CLEAR-COM - ECLIPSE HX The Eclipse and Eclipse HX Digital Matrix Platforms are the latest advancement in digital intercom technology for enabling critical intercommunications among production teams who need direct (pointto-point) and one-to-many (group and partyline or conference) connections.

The Eclipse HX family was designed and engineered to be highly flexible and extensible for addressing the intercom needs of the global production community.

Eclipse and Eclipse HX systems provide reliable and flexible communications backbones for non-blocking distribution of audio and data signals across thousands of users within an intercom system network.

The systems are unique in their abilities to seamlessly integrate with digital wireless beltpacks (for untethered mobile communications) and IP-based software

intercoms (for remote users on virtual panels).

In addition, Eclipse and Eclipse HX support the industry’s most advanced and broadcast range of 1RU, 2RU and desktop user control keypanels that come in either pushbutton, lever, and rotary key forms giving our users the most options for their day-to-day intercom use. All system can intelligently trunk over CAT5, POTS, IP, Fiber and MADI without compromising in audio quality and performance.

Eclipse HX, the newest set of matrix systems, delivers high system performance, intuitive management software, and high capacity for system expansion to meet the constant changing production demands. www.clearcom.com www.mondostadia.com

Stadium Productions Producing a broadcast from a stadium or arena is a large undertaking. Connecting staff from all endpoints in the stadium is critical to delivering a seamless sports production.

How it Works A Digital Matrix frame connects staff on panels, wireless/wired devices, and radios/phones through multiple ports. For example, the control room easily can direct stationary field cameras and field talent to a specific area for sideline interview - all while video board operators manage game stats and the video feeds.

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52 INSTALL

LANXESS ARENA

Built in the late ‘90s, Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany, is among the highest-ranking arenas for ticket sales, thanks in part to it being one of the largest ice hockey arenas outside the USA. Formerly known as Kölnarena, the venue changed its name in 2008 and, following the change, as the venue started to near its 20th anniversary, it was decided that now would be the perfect time for a technology upgrade.

Cologne, Germany

From an audio perspective, requirements have changed dramatically over the years. Not only have the demands of the technicians and the management increased in terms of flexibility and functionality, they are also expected to deliver evenly distributed sound coverage, and any new system has to regard economic efficiency

Above: The Lanxess Arena is the home arena for ice hockey team, Kölner Haie. www.mondostadia.com

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and legal obligations highly, too. Much of this criteria is down to the audience having higher expectations of the PA these days, which is why the Lanxess Arena management decided to replace the existing sound system with an up-todate, modern acoustic system.

The project started under the guidance of Michael Häck, the arena’s long-serving, in-house Sound Engineer. It was a tough start given all the decision criteria and parameters that had to be taken into consideration. The brief was also lengthy. The system was required to have different sound zones, it had to function as the voice alarm system 24/7, as well as the main sound system for the arena, and part of the system had to be capable of acting as a delay line when the venue is used for music concerts. All

of this, on top of the catering for the games of Kölner Haie, the arena’s home team.

A fundamental issue was meeting the legal obligations of a speech intelligibility index of 0.5 that has to be delivered to all seats in the arena, which has a reverberation time of three seconds, as well as the legally specified value of the minimum SPL during an evacuation procedure.

But after a number of lengthy discussions, demonstrations and acoustical tests of various brands and products, a TW AUDiO system was deemed the best solution.

A combination of 56 VERA36 line array cabinets and 16 VERA S33 subwoofer were chosen as the main system to surround the height-adjustable central video cube. These were supported by 10 T24Ns for the playing field and the stands. www.mondostadia.com

“We already noticed the exceptional power and directivity of the VERA36 system during the selection process when measuring the systems.

In January 2016, we tested the TW AUDiO system for the first time during a live show of the Lachende Kölnarena,” said Michael. “We’ve flown an array of 10 VERA36 with four S33 in endfire mode alongside the VERA on each side of the stage. Everyone, including the house technician and the band’s engineer were impressed by the sound, especially the sound of the speech that was cut through the surrounding noise of 8,000 carnival revellers and the imaginary 4,000 tambourines. The system’s incredible intelligibility and defined sound pattern was undoubtedly convincing.”

Ease 4.4 and Ease Focus 3 were used during the

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planning period to ensure the system would meet all the criteria. This did require custommade suspension devices for the arrays and amplifier racks for the catwalks . The racks house 16 Lab.gruppen D-Series amplifiers. This particular series integrates a wide range of digital audio and control protocols, which equips the system at the Lanxess Arena with powerful benefits and unique capabilities in comparison to competitor products.

“It wasn’t just a simple case of exchanging some loudspeakers”, explained Michael. “The entire infrastructure consisting of optical fibres, network technology, amplifiers and the entire signal processing hardware and software were to be replaced.” For the audio networking, Michael opted for a market leader in the field, selecting Biamp’s Tesira Server. TW AUDiO worked with the Biamp product to create bespoke presets specifically for this installation. The Tersia Server offers scalable processing that can be adapted to suit the venue application at any given time.

Summing up the audio installation, Michael said:

“It wasn’t just the sound that made us decide on TW AUDiO. It was also the professional collaboration during the planning period with the colleagues of the development and support departments. Every inspirational and constructive idea has been taken on board, thought through and implemented. And that still carries on after the installation took place. The Biamp, system has also constantly been adapted to its needs.”

Although not renovated at the same time, the LED lighting was given a facelift recently with the help of Musco TLC 600 spotlights installed as floodlights and Musco TLC 400 spotlights used to optimise the audience lighting. A total of 160 new spotlights were installed across the entire area, all of which are fully controllable by a flexible system. The selection of LED for the new lighting fixtures future proofs the arena in terms of environmental and economic efficiency.

A further element of the lighting inventory is four Robert Juliat Lancelot 4,000W HTI long-throw followspots. Robert Juliat’s Lancelot followspot offers 4000W of crisp, flat beam, a very narrow

TECHNICAL INFORMATION BRANDS: TW AUDiO, Lab.gruppen, Biamp, Musco, Robert Juliat WEBSITE: www.twaudio.de / labgruppen.com / www.biamp.com / www.musco.com / www.robertjuliat.com

www.mondostadia.com

2°-5° variable zoom, and a powerful output. This is combined with perfect ergonomic features designed with the operator in mind, excellent heat management and a wealth of modular accessories that include progressive effect and colour changing, diffusion and colour correction, and an optional gobo changer.

The followspots were supplied by Robert Juliat’s long-term Germany distributor, Lighpower.

“When Lanxess approached us with their requirements, we knew that Lancelot was he obvious choice for this multi-purpose, high profile venue,” said Lightpower’s, Bjoern Gaentzsch at the time of installation. “Lancelot has the muscle to cover the distance, the reliability to always put in a top performance and the flexibility to do whatever is required of it.”

The arena is not only impressive inside either, its exterior boasts a glass façade stretching 8,000 sq metres that is supported by a 76-metre high steel arc. A masterpiece both inside and out, this 18,000-seat arena is a definite hub for sporting and entertainment gigs alike.

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RENEWED VISION - PROPRESENTER SCOREBOARD Renewed Vision’s ProPresenter Scoreboard software-based score presentation system combines the company’s hallmarks of ease of use, affordability and visual richness with robust features and tailored user interfaces purposebuilt for driving video-based scoreboards including targeted advertising.

Building on the powerful video, graphics and text playout engine of the award-winning ProPresenter live production platform, ProPresenter Scoreboard’s advanced, multiregion presentation capabilities enable users to capitalise on the display flexibility of modern LED scoreboards. Multiple, independently-controlled screen areas integrate scores, live video feeds, pre-recorded video, rotating advertisements, player profiles, dynamic statistics, news-style scrolling text tickers, externally-sourced data and more into immersive visual productions that engage audiences and drive revenue.

ProPresenter Scoreboard’s dynamic advertising capabilities increase revenue opportunities and accelerate ROI. An unlimited number

of advertising zones can be defined in the scoreboard layout, each automatically rotating between multiple images, animations and video ads at user-defined intervals. The resulting revenue potential enables venues to quickly recoup their investment in both the software and the scoreboard itself, while the dynamic nature of the advertising can increase audience retention, maximising sponsor satisfaction. Comprehensive reports can be exported to provide advertisers with detailed metrics including impressions and total display time.

Costing a fraction of the price of typical scoreboard solutions, the software is affordable enough for high school athletic fields and gymnasiums yet powerful and flexible enough for college and professional stadiums and arenas. For venues that host a variety of sports, ProPresenter Scoreboard lets users easily switch between template-based output layouts optimised for the specific score presentation needs of sports including football, baseball, American football, lacrosse, basketball, hockey, www.mondostadia.com

tennis and volleyball. Operators can also change display layouts on-the-fly during an event to emphasise different visual elements, such as dedicating more of the screen to advertisements or live entertainment during halftime.

ProPresenter Scoreboard is exceptionally easy to use, with an intuitive software interface that can be quickly learned by volunteer, student or parttime operators. Dedicated scoring interfaces, tailored for each sport, accelerate and simplify accurate entry of scoring information and game data. ProPresenter Scoreboard also integrates with a wide range of third-party, external scoreboard controllers, enabling the use of traditional tactile methods of scorekeeping and clock management while creating compelling visual displays of all data feeds provided by the control console. Meanwhile, the software’s built-in web server allows users to update scores remotely from field level or anywhere in the venue using a tablet, mobile phone or laptop. www.renewedvision.com/scoreboard

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GROUPAMA STADIUM

The new stadium built for the Euro 2016 and home to Ligue 1 side, Olympique Lyonnais has been kitted out with a state-of-the-art audio solution courtesy of EAW, Powersoft, Symetrix and Riedel.

Lyon, France

Groupama Stadium (formerly known as Parc Olympique Lyonnais), also known as the Grand Stade and the Stade des Lumières, is being heralded as the stadium of the future. The new 59,186-seat stadium is located in Décines near Lyon and boasts HD Wi-Fi for 25,000 and a cash-free payment system that utilises a smart phone app for everything.

The city had been looking at the possibility of building a new stadium since 2007, but had trouble getting the project off the ground

Above: Groupama Stadium was built for the Euro 2016 and is the home ground of the Ligue 1 side, Olympique Lyonnais.

Images © Charlotte Busschaërt

www.mondostadia.com

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financially. When France was awarded the Euro 2016 tournament by UEFA and Lyon was selected as a host city, the club decided to finance the project independently and the deal was sealed. With an estimated cost of €450m, construction began in 2012 and the stadium officially opened its doors last season.

One of the goals for the new stadium was to provide fans with a match day experience not found anywhere else. The design office of Atelier Audiovisuel Equipements, the engineering consulting firm brought in by Vinci Construction, put out a tender for the sound reinforcement system. Axente, a well-respected professional audio distributor in France, and integration specialists SNEF and Axians worked together to design the distributed system that ultimately

won the tender.

The goal was state-of-the art sound reinforcement that would rival audio at highlyregarded stadiums, such as Wembley and Camp Nou. The new system features Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) loudspeakers powered

by Powersoft amplifiers on a Symetrix Edge network.

Alain Hercman, Audio Department Director at Axente stated: “This was an amazing project from the start - the stadium provides visitors with free HD Wi-Fi, more than 175 sq metres of video screens and the highest quality audio system available. They spared no expense and it shows everywhere you look.”

The stadium is part of a new sports complex that stretches over 50 hectares and features a training www.mondostadia.com

ground for Olympique Lyonnais, as well as hotels and office buildings. The oval-shaped stadium the centerpiece of the grounds - provides three tiers of covered seating designed to provide fans with maximum visibility regardless of seat location. The roof canopy not only covers the stands, but also extends over a large part of the podium surrounding the stadium, creating new spaces for fans to come together outside of the venue.

“The goal of the sound system was to provide intelligibility, high output and pattern control throughout the space not only for games but for events the city might host during the off season,” explained Rodolphe Roellinger of SNEF. “We designed a distributed system made up of EAW QX500 Series loudspeakers that provides more

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than 105dB / STI sup 0.5 and extended bandwidth which easily delivered on that objective.”

Frankie Celeste of Axians added: “The system was designed to inter-operate with the public address system and with the EVAC audio system. We also managed Dante and MADI interfaces via Symetrix and Riedel components. The end result exceeded expectations.”

The distributed system consists of 20 loudspeaker clusters with the majority of the clusters made of two EAW QX596i and one EAW QX564i loudspeakers. The QX596i shoot down to cover the first and second tiers of seating while the QX564i covers the upper tier. Four corner clusters consist of one QC596i and one QX564i aimed to cover the corner seating areas.

The clusters are mounted 35-metres (115ft)

high under the gangway utilising custom hanging hardware designed by SNEF. The three-way, point source QX596i and QX564i loudspeakers load ultra-efficient mid-high compression drivers (90º x 45º and 60º x 45º, respectively) with a constant directivity horn. Four phase aligned 12-inch low frequency transducers arranged as vertical and horizontal pairs leverage beneficial interaction based on their spacing to extend pattern control will into the low frequency range.

“The QX Series are state-of-the-art for venues like Grand Stade that that require high output and intelligibility,” Frankie noted. “The four 12-inch LF cones were exactly what we needed to achieve excellent low end without compromising intelligibility.”

When it came to powering the

TECHNICAL INFORMATION INSTALLERS: SNEF, Axians, Axente BRANDS: EAW, Powersoft, Symetrix, Riedel WEBSITE: www.snef.fr / www.axians.fr / www.axente.fr / eaw.com / www. powersoft-audio.com / www.symetrix.co / www.riedel.net www.mondostadia.com

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loudspeakers, the design team looked for reliability, power and efficiency. It was important that the amplifiers could not only power the system but provide the flexibility it required.

Four eight-channel Powersoft Ottocanali 4K4 and 14 Powersoft Ottocanali 12K4 were specified to drive the 20 loudspeaker clusters. The 12K4’s feed the low end sections - mono bridged at eight ohms - and the 4K4 manage the mid and high sections into a four ohm load. The amplifiers were rack mounted in amplifier rooms located on the catwalk at the north and south ends of the stadium.

“Together the amplifiers provide more than 184,000W of power,” Rodolphe stated. “Because each provides eight independent configurable channels, they had the power and flexibility we needed for such a large multi-zone system.”

Dual redundant power supplies ensure not only great efficiency and reliability, but also provide backup in case catastrophe strikes. Powersoft’s patented SRM (Smart Rails Management) technology maximises the efficiency of the system as well as reduces power consumption.

Fixed frequency switch-mode technology in both the power supply and output stage translates into lower crosstalk and perfect matching between the two. Fortunately, Ottocanali amplifiers handle over and under voltage extremely well without

affecting performance. PFC lowers peak current adsorption, fostering the reduction of the wiring gauge which translates into lower installation costs.

“One of the main characteristics you look for in amplifiers is reliability - especially in a large venue like Grand Stade,” said Frankie. “Powersoft has an excellent reputation in this area and the eightchannel units are ideal for this application.”

Alain of Axente (which was Powersoft’s distributor at the time of installation, but is no longer), added: “The quality of this amplifier platform is far superior to others and allows us to use fewer amplifiers. It was a win-win situation.”

“DSP with built-in Audinate Dante that would work around networking technology in place was a necessity,” Frankie pointed out. “Edge from Symetrix with its flexible input / output configuration was ideal. Fortunately, EAW has designed dedicated super modules for the Composer software that make it easy to monitor, control and process the audio distribution network.”

Two Edge units - one rack mounted in the amplifier room, the other was rack mounted in the control room - provide the crew with consistent support for the Dante media networking technology.

A Symetrix Radius 12x8 EX DSP along with www.mondostadia.com

Above: Marc Kocks (Powersoft), Alain Hercman (Axente), Christophe Carles (Axente), Maxime Jonda (SNEF), Frankie Celeste (Axians), Rodolphe Roellinger (SNEF), and David Thiebaut (Atelier Audiovisuel).

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Symetrix expansion I/O units offer audio sign routing and distribution of the signal to VIP rooms, player areas and other spaces equipped with ARC-2e wall panels used to tap into the system.

“Each of the manufacturers in this project represent the top of the range, and they work together perfectly,” explained Alain. “With the Symetrix Composer software it was simple for us to import pre-sets for the EAW QX system, and that was a big advantage - there is no difference between the Symetrix processing and the manufacturer processing. Also using Symetrix Composer meant we were able to design a user friendly interface for simple control of the system.”

The final piece of the jigsaw came courtesy of Riedel, its MediorNet real-time media network, RockNet digital audio network, Artist digital matrix intercom system, Acrobat wireless intercom system, and Performer digital partyline system provide a decentralised fibre-based network for flexible signal transport, routing, and processing, as well as communications, throughout the building - including the technical facilities for

Olympique Lyonnais TV. The requirements of the football matches or any other live event for that matter are met by the versatility and scalability of the Riedel infrastructure, which allows the stadium’s audio, video, data, and communications signals to be leveraged with speed and simplicity.

“The deployment of the Riedel technical infrastructure reflects our decision to embed state-of-the-art technology in our brand-new stadium,” said Jean-Yves Meilland, Director of OL Images at Olympique Lyonnais Group. “The resulting installation exceeds our needs with respect to sports events and also enables us to address all types of events with very valuable flexibility.”

A total of 18 strategically located MediorNet frames are connected over optical fibre to create a decentralised router, which can be expanded as needed with mobile frames integrated into flight cases. Riedel’s RockNet interfaces have been allocated onto the network to expand audio resources as required. Additional frames can easily be added to the mix for larger or more complex events. Communications throughout the stadium are supported not only by the Artist and

www.mondostadia.com

Acrobat intercom systems, but also by Riedel’s new Smartpanel multifunctional user interface, equipped with intercom apps, and Riedel’s RiFace universal gateways, which create a connection to the in-house radio communication system.

“Groupama Stadium offers an exciting example of how new technology and a flexible infrastructure can be used to create an incredibly rich experience for live event attendees,” said Franck Berger, General Manager, France and Africa at Riedel Communications. “From the seamless communications that support all areas of the facility and event production to the effortless transport of signals as needed, Riedel solutions combine to help the stadium set a new standard.”

“This was a project that was a long time in the making,” concluded Alain. “I think the owners and fans would agree that it has been worth the wait. The audio system is stunning - it provides everything necessary for what is needed now and well into the future due to great team work between manufacturer, distributor and integrators. Everyone is extremely pleased with the end result.”

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62 IN DETAIL

ABSEN - XD10 Absen has recently launched a new permanent outdoor LED solution.

Coming in as a new addition to the successful XD Series, the XD10 SMD outdoor LED display is now a second option, joining the XD6. The XD10, like the XD6, is smaller, slimmer and built with the future firmly in mind.

The XD10 is the ideal solution for stadiums, with its high-definition, 10mm pixel pitch display delivering the visual quality needed for spectators inside the venue. Manufactured using a super-light aluminium cabinet, the XD10 is 33% thinner than the X-Series from Absen. The XD10, which comes in at 2.1ft x 3.2ft x 4-inch per panel, with the thickness being just 106mm, saves plenty of space when it comes to projects, along with making delivery and installation much easier and hassle free.

Each XD10 panel is a fully enclosed structure with rubber gaskets and waterproof modules, which protect the electronic components inside from moisture - making it ideal for outdoor use in

open-air stadiums.

The XD10 comes with Advanced Technology Smart Monitoring, so without the need for traditional monitoring cards and cable connections, the XD10 - as well as the XD6 make it possible to monitor modules and panels in real time.

Once installed, users can monitor each XD10 panel. The XD10 smart modules display the ID number, order number, production date, running time, module current, module voltage, module temperature and colour coordinates. If there are ever any loose module connections, the user will receive an instant notification to let them know.

The module‘s data and power supply have a parallel connection design, so that in case of an individual module failure, others will not be affected.

Maintenance for the XD10 panels is stress-free, too, with a simple process allowing users to access the front or back of the panel. www.absen-europe.com www.mondostadia.com

Features Revolutionary SMD Design • Closer viewing distance • Wider viewing angle • Front or rear serviceable Remote Monitoring • Real time performance tracking • Live feed to PC and mobile devices • Instant fail detect notification Integrated Power and Data Core • Smart receiving technology • Ribbonless module plug-ins • All-in-one power and data access box

Horbst Hall, Germany

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This isn’t about new loudspeakers.

It’s about bass lovers and partygoers, sports supporters, music fans and absolute clarity connecting congregations; it’s about dynamic daily programs and tireless listening for everyone, every time. It‘s not about the new 24S/24S-D point source loudspeakers and 21S-SUB taking the performance of the installation specific d&b xS-Series to empowering new levels, in cabinets designed for easier aesthetic integration. It‘s about solutions tailor made to task: d&b amplifiers, software, and accessories, all perfectly integrated for highly efficient, versatile solutions. www.dbaudio.com

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