Electro-Voice Sound System for the new main stand of the KV Mechelen AFAS Stadium

The old main stand has been replaced by a brand-new one with luxurious seats, two-story sky boxes with outdoor seats, a business restaurant and a renewed press and player infrastructure.

The main stand connects to the atmosphere and family stand behind the goal on the west side and is connected to the fitness building on the east side of the field.

 

After the two new comfortable atmosphere stands at north and west, which were built in 2016, KV Mechelen is now taking a new step with a main stand that focuses primarily on a business interpretation. The capacity remains virtually the same -   2,000 seats are available here - but the extra commercial possibilities will structurally strengthen the club. This way KV Mechelen will be able to realise a new budget increase. Resulting in extra resources to strengthen the sports club.

 

In figures 

  • Total costs amount to € 16 million
  • 1999 seats
  • 252 central sky seats
  • 34 sky boxes and 3 corner boxes
  • 108m long, 25,6m wide
  • 2 corners of 23 m long
  • Verelst Business Lounge 1500m²
  • 175 places and 2 TV studios in press stand
  • Total capacity of the AFAS Stadium will amount to 17,000 visitors

Design

Parties involved:

Client:                          KV Mechelen

AV Consultant:           Attalos - Azari | Bonheiden (B)

Manufacturer:             EVI Audio GmbH | Straubing (D)

Supplier:                      Equipment SolutionsPartner [ESP] | Boom (B)

Rigging consultant:     Rigconsult | Heist op den Berg (B)

 

Attalos - Azari has made an inventory of the needs of KV Mechelen. This overview of requirements helped with the search for partners to design, deliver and integrate the project. The north and west stands had already been renewed in 2016 were an Electro-Voice / BIAMP sound system was installed. Both Attalos - Azari and KV Mechelen preferred to use the same brand of sound system for the new main stand so the existing infrastructure's control and operation could be expanded and the sound characteristics would remain the same.

 

The program of requirements contained the following components:

 

General requirements

·       The entire sound infrastructure should meet minimum UEFA-requirements (>105dB for +15K stadiums)

·       All cables should meet the AREI art.104 &CPR EN50575 regulations (=> BD4 /SD Halogen free)

 

Control and operation

·       Integrate the new main stand into the existing BIAMP setup

·       New clusters / zones should be added and connected to the existing Tesira-system with the minimum sound requirements to be UEFA-compliant

 

Based on this, the definitive system design was established in collaboration with EVI Audio and ESP. EVI Audio expanded the existing EASE model of the stadium with the main south stand and the southwest  corner stand. The calculations and simulations for the coverage, sound pressure (dBSPL) and speech intelligibility (STI) were made leading to the final speaker configuration.

EASEmodel

Loudspeaker position and alignment

Direct Sound Pressure levels without consideration of the room acoustic

Total Sound Pressure levels with consideration of the room acoustic

Statistical total sound pressure level, Broad Band

STI based on assumptions of the room acoustic and the audience noise floor
Statistical STI calculation, assumed audience noise included

Bill of material for Electro-Voice

From the calculations and simulations, the following bill of material and configuration has been established.

6 clusters with 1 pcs EVH-1152S/99-PIB and 1 pcs EVF-1122S126-PIB

1 clusters with 1 pcs EVH-1152S/99-PIB and 1 pcs EVF-1122S66-PIB

1 clusters with 2 pcs EVF-1152S/99

8 pcs CPS2.12-230V amplifiers

Bill of material for DSP and AoIP

BIAMP Tesira EX-OUT 1

EXTREME X440-G2 1

Rigging

Together with Rigconsult, ESP has designed custom frames to be able to mount the clusters on the roof construction of the stadium. The actual manufacturing of the frames was done by Rigconsult.

Assembly of custom rigging frame

Integrated custom rigging frame

ESP reached out to RUIM and Rigconsult for the integration of the sound system. E-installer DECAT, in addition to the general E-installations, has also installed the main cable ducts for the sound system.

Work RUIM:

  • Supply of installation material
  • Installation of secondary cable trays
  • Cabling installation
  • 19 "rack (Placement, Mounting amplifiers and other equipment, Connecting and finishing cabling)
  • Connecting speakers
  • Testing the complete installation
  • Programming DSP and AoIP configuration
  • Training customer staff

Work Rigconsult:

  • Supply of rigging frames
  • Compile rigging frames
  • Compile speaker clusters
  • Mounting speaker clusters
  • Certification of loudspeaker clusters

Suspension of loudspeaker clusters

Work ESP

  • Supply of EV equipment
  • Coordination of implementation documents
  • Technical coordination of implementation
  • Coordination and implementation of final alignment
  • Training customer staff

 

Work Attalos - Azari

  • Administrative coordination of the implementation
Completed and certified loudspeaker clusters