Located near the Pliska Hotel, east of the city centre, Arena Sofia is the largest and highest standard multi-discipline indoor sports venue in Bulgaria. As well as providing a national facility for sport, the arena has also been designed to host music concerts. With a 12,000+ capacity, the 16,000sq.m venue is built on five levels, one of which is underground. In addition to the main sports hall, the venue incorporates dressing rooms, training area, fitness centre, spa centre, restaurant, a press conference hall and underground parking for nearly 1,000 cars.
The training area is already in operation and the first major sports event will be a volleyball tournament between the national teams of Bulgaria and Serbia at the end of July. Arena Sofia will host its first concert in October, with Jean Michel Jarre.
Construction of Arena Sofia was awarded to the major Bulgarian construction company Glavbolgarstroy AD, who appointed ProAudio Ltd to complete the audio requirements of the venue.
ProAudio Ltd designed the system for the main hall of Arena Sofia based on Community R2, 12-inch, three-way full-range loudspeakers. A total of 24 R2-694Z, twelve R2-474Z and four R2-77Z provide complete and consistent coverage for the audience and participant areas. These are supplemented by 12 twin 15-inch, 3,000W program Community i215LVS subs, which extend the low frequency power and impact of the system.
Stanislav Petrov, managing director of ProAudio Ltd, comments, "We have used Community R- Series on many large projects in the past and knew they would be ideal for Arena Sofia. With excellent high intelligibility sound quality, accurate coverage patterns, high SPL capability and proven reliability they have given us exactly the results we expected. We also get outstanding technical support from Community's TAG (Technical Audio Group) team, which gives an added level of assurance to our design."
The Community loudspeakers are driven by Powersoft M50Q amplifiers and mixing and DSP is handled by a TOA D-2000. The system also incorporates a D-2012C remote console and two D-2008SP digital mixing processor units with 32-in and 32-out configuration. CobraNet interface modules are also used. The microphones are TOA wireless, with power antenna distributor, and Audio-Technica PRO 45's for hall ambience.
ProAudio Ltd also designed and installed the public address systems throughout the venue, including a separate VA system based on the TOA VM-3000, however their most immediately noticeable installation for evening visitors to Arena Sofia will be the two Griven Sky Rose HMI 2500 MkII DMX wide angle multi-beam sky projectors, which are mounted on top of the building and are visible from up to 10km.
"Arena Sofia was a very important and prestigious project for our company and it was important for the design and products to meet specification." concludes Petrov. "I am pleased to say that we and the client are both impressed and very satisfied with the results."
(Jim Evans)
