Manchester Velodrome Sound System Installation

"I am delighted with the new PA system provided by Adlib. It now means we are able to offer our spectators excellent sound quality. Thanks to the close working relationship with Adlib, we have a system with built in flexibility that enables us to adapt to the varying needs of our clients."

- Jarl Walsh, General Manager / Manchester Velodrome

The Requirement

Adlib has supplied sound system rental for many National Cycling Centre events over the last decade, which has been very successful in delivering the clarity and coherence required to cover the 3500 capacity Velodrome venue.

Adlib’s sales and installations team, was approached by ISG Regions Ltd., who managed the building development works for Manchester City Council, about a new fixed sound system for the Velodrome track.

In terms of sound, providing consistent full-range coverage for balanced music reproduction along with clear comprehensible spoken commentary across the venue was top of the agenda, while the brief included speakers to facilitate different setups needed for a whole variety of sporting track and court events.

The Solution

The primary acoustic challenges were to minimise high level reflections from the ceiling and other hard and flat surfaces including the polished wood of centre court space. This avoided the potentially costly introduction of acoustic dampening material.

Extensive measurement and analysis was undertaken with the client before committing to the final system configuration, with the speaker arrays flown from temporary chain hoists. This also established that the system sounded great for music as well as delivering excellent speech intelligibility.

CODA’s Focus software was used to acoustically model the venue, and the resulting design was based on four ‘North-South-East-West’ LA8 cluster’s each of two speakers, flown above the centre of the arena, augmented with three hangs firing at the main stands towards each side of the Velodrome.

In total there are a total of four audio zones across the 46 x Airline LA8 speakers in sixteen hangs and six hangs of 2 x Airline LA4’s.

Signal processing and signal distribution is managed by Soundweb London BLU-100 devices. A separate voice evacuation system linked to the fire alarm is used for emergency announcements which interface with the main CODA system signal when activated.

Once the plans for the system design were approved, the installation schedule was gruelling. It involved Adlib’s crews working at height, in confined spaces and using a variety of mobile high level access platforms during 5 weeks of overnight shifts.

The Result

It’s really rewarding to work on projects of this scale with such demanding operational requirements.

We are very proud that Adlib installations can deliver these high levels of service, excellence and technical support as well as offering the imagination and acoustic engineering skills to design a flexible and appropriate system with limited budgetary constraints.

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