LEA Pro amplifies Sydney Showground
- Details
Today it's a multi-use venue, hosting nearly 150 national and international events annually, including music festivals, sporting events, exhibitions, trade shows and the Sydney Royal Easter Show, its flagship event and the nation's largest annual ticketed event.
Sydney Showground comprises several buildings, including Giants Stadium, the Dome and Exhibition Complex, Charles Moses Stadium, Howie Complex, the Sydney Royal Stables, and more. After 25 years of nearly continuous operation, the AV system was in need of refurbishment, so they turned to Connect Series amplifiers from LEA Professional to return the AV system to its former glory.
Showground staff contacted integrator The P.A. People to help overhaul the system. Ross Ford, project manager at The P.A. People, was tasked with leading the installation. “From an operational point of view, LEA amplifiers offered us several key features that made them easy to integrate. The ability to bridge channels, ingest Dante inputs, and utilise analogue inputs for the fire trip lines, plus they're a lot smaller and more compact than many competitive offerings.”
Every pavilion has a standalone public address system, with a site-wide system in place for emergency communications. A major element of the AV upgrades was the desire for complete system monitoring and supervision. Because the AV in some of the smaller venues is used infrequently, unbeknownst to the staff, when required the AV systems often performed sub-optimally, an issue only identified immediately prior to an event during testing.
LEA’s line-monitoring capabilities were a significant factor in their selection. Now, AV staff receive an email notifying them of device issues or signal path disruptions in real-time, allowing staff to make fixes in many cases before anyone notices a problem.
A mixture of nine LEA Connect Series 354D amplifiers and nine LEA Connect Series 704D amplifiers were deployed in the smaller venues. Both are suited for small to medium-scale installations and support high-Z (70V or 100V) and low-Z selectable by channel, giving the Showground excess capabilities for additional loudspeakers in the future.
For the Dome and Exhibition Complex, The P.A. People installed 13 LEA Connect Series 1504D. The CS1504D is LEA Professional’s flagship high-power IoT-enabled amplifier and is Dante-enabled and supports high-Z (70V or 100V) and low-Z selectable by channel, providing capabilities for possible expansion.
A significant challenge for the installation team was that many venues were in constant use, so finding time to perform the upgrades and swap out the gear had to be very carefully planned. Thankfully, LEA’s Sharkware software made device configuration simple, saving the team significant commissioning time.
“Because of the quality of LEA’s amplifiers and the ease of being able to implement them in the infrastructure, we were able to swap out 15 amplifiers in a few days,” says Ford. “That time included tuning and setting up all the system parameters and making them operational.”
Jonathan Seward, head of RAS Property and Sydney Royal Easter Show Operations shared: “The RAS-managed site, Sydney Showground is spread over 30 hectares with a diverse offering of event spaces up to 7,000m² column free. The flexibility and performance of our PA system is crucial to the safe and effective performance of our venue and we are thrilled with the positive system performance outcome, a fit-for-purpose solution and our working relationship with the P.A. People has been exceptional.”
