Community bats for Brian Lara Cricket Academy
- Details
Just north of the city of San Fernando, the Brian Lara Cricket Academy is the first state-of-the-art 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 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 in May of 2016 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.
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 6 x 12-inch for LF, 6 x 2-inch for MF and 6 x 1-inch for HF, with a total power of 4,710W,” commented Michael Pereira. “That really gets the power across to the field with excellent pattern control to below 100 Hz.” A total of 16 Community R2SUB subwoofers were used for low frequency reinforcement for the system.
Manufacture of the speakers was started immediately by Community while 45,000 feet of cables were airfreighted to Trinidad so that work could begin onsite. Streamline turned to Electro-Voice for amplification and audio processing. With the stadium split into a North and South stand, 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 fiber optic cable and a Cisco managed network.
Pereira 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.”
(Jim Evans)
