While the addition of new player signings will always take the limelight, five English Premier League clubs have made major changes to their stadium pitch lighting during the off-season that will also give fans something to cheer about.
Clubs including Tottenham Hotspur, Cardiff City FC, Southampton FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers FC will debut new LED lighting systems to offer enhanced visibility, less glare and energy efficiency for players, spectators and stadium owners.
Stadium lighting specialists Musco carried out the LED system installation at each venue, taking the number of EPL clubs with its lighting solution to 11 in total.
The new lighting systems will enable each stadium to rectify issues that came with previous generations of halide lighting such as glare, uneven coverage, flickering on HD broadcasts or being able to meet the requirements of the league.
“At Southampton FC we are aware of the unique challenges posed by layout of our stadium. When our current service provider went into administration the club was determined to find a solution that met our requirements as well as those of our fans and the Premier League,” said Southampton’s director of operations John McWilliams.
“We have struggled with a number of issues with our previous system, including glare, lux levels and uniformity. This meant that we looked at a number of different service providers and found Musco the most innovative and able to design a system that actually worked in our stadium.
“For us, working with experts to design, install and maintain a compliant, cost-effective and reliable system has been very refreshing.”
Of the five new stadia, Tottenham Hotspur is the only one to be built from scratch. The new venue, which is still currently under construction, has the advantage of being able to completely customize its solution and installation.
“Using LED for the field-of-play lighting offers many benefits that previous light source technologies simply cannot,” said Jon Babbs, stadium director, Tottenham Hotspur.
“We found the performance of Musco’s LED solution to be the best on the market. Their experience enabled them to customize virtually every aspect of the system’s fixtures, structural elements, and electrical components to meet our exact needs.
“We wanted the Club’s new stadium to offer a one-of-a-kind experience for players and fans, and this will be a big part of achieving that.”
Meanwhile, for stadia that required a retrofit of new lighting, things were more of a challenge.
“The fantastic achievement of delivering the new floodlighting system ahead of schedule was some feat given the requirement to rewire the stadium using rope access teams…the light rendering achieved surpasses our expectations and is a marked improvement to our original metal halide system,” said Cardiff City managing director Steve Borley.
In addition to improved pitch lighting during games, the new systems will enhance the stadium experience by offering its DMX integration, which enables individual fixtures to synchronize with music for light shows, while multi-zone aiming will greatly improve broadcast quality.
August 15, 2018
