Following an extensive £34m redevelopment, Doncaster Racecourse was officially reopened by HRH The Princess Royal for the St. Leger Festival, attended by a record modern day crowd of over 70,000. The development involved the replacement of the old Yorkshire Stand with the state-of-the-art Urban-i Stand and Lazarus Exhibition Hall, providing quality facilities to race-goers and exhibition and conference attendees.
Doncaster Racecourse's new custom-built public address and audio visual communications system was heralded a great success by the managing executive of the South Yorkshire venue. The system, designed by RaceTech, took more than two years to develop. Among the features created specifically for Doncaster is a digital audio-visual control system, which facilitates the delivery of targeted messaging and advertising to different areas of the course, on 12 different channels. For the first time, the racecourse management has the capability to direct a wide variety of services and products to individual groups of racecourse visitors, making 'demography-specific' marketing a viable goal.
The audio system for the Urban-i Stand main spectator area was designed by Robin Dibble, Racetech's audio systems engineer. The system uses just four Community R1 and four Community R.5 loudspeakers, driven by QSC ISA series amplifies and controlled by a BSS Soundweb London.
Dibble explained the choice of loudspeakers, "For high intelligibility, natural speech reproduction, pattern control and all-weather durability, the Community R-Series are simply outstanding. I have had many years experience of these products and can totally rely on them to give exactly the quality results we need."
Doncaster is now the fourth premier UK racecourse to use Community R-Series, alongside Newbury, the new grandstand at Aintree and Sandown Park.
(Jim Evans)
