Products showcased:
We were tasked with supplying Brighton & Hove Albions FC’s football stadium, the Amex Arena with a site-wide voice alarm evacuation system that complies with EN54 certification. Utilising our ATEIS IDA8 voice alarm controller and a secondary unit built into separate system racks, we enabled live announcements from a variety of microphones, triggered saved messages, and played background music. This ATEIS system is integrated with a wide range of Penton EN54 loudspeakers to ensure evacuation procedures, information announcements and marketing messages can be distributed throughout the various zones in and out of the stadium. The system is controlled by our GUI software, TerraManager, via a touch screen.
Brighton & Hove Albion, also known as The Seagulls have been without an official home since their original stadium was sold in 1997. Their new “Amex Stadium” nestles in the rolling hills of the South Downs just outside the city of Brighton & Hove and was handed over to the club in May 2011.
NG Bailey were awarded the low voltage/electrical contract and they in turn appointed VCP Services to supply and install security and life safety systems including the PA/VA system.
The system, which did not need to be EN54 compliant but did have to comply with BS5839, covers 38 zones in and outside the stadium. It consists of a mixture of equipment from Ateis, Community and Penton.
All the back of house and external loudspeakers, used in all the public spaces, directors boardroom, sponsors lounges and retail outlet, were supplied by Penton.
RCS ceiling speakers are used in the corridors around the lounges and executive suites, whilst CCS full-range units are used in the suites themselves. SENTRY6 vandal resistant cabinet speakers are used in the stairwells, plant rooms and toilets. For the concourse, Penton supplied MSH music horns and CELL bi-directional projector loudspeakers.
As an aside, a quirk of the stadium’s construction meant that fire retardant foam had to be sprayed into the ceiling of the lower level concourses, to compensate for thinner concrete than would normally be allowed as a fire barrier. The foam has the side effect of taking all the acoustic reflection out of the ceiling of the concourse, making for a low level of reverberation in the space … it sounds great!!!