SOLUTIONS: FRIENDS ARENA, SOLNA SWEDEN The best of Friends
Designing and installing the audio system at Sweden’s new national stadium was no small task. Paddy Baker tells the story of how it came about
The 50,000-seat arena can be extended to a capacity of 65,000 for concerts
SWEDEN’S new national stadium, the Friends Arena in Solna, near Stockholm, is one of the most modern in terms of concept, architecture, design and equipment. Visitors enjoy unobstructed sightlines from every seat, and the stadium is equipped with a retractable roof, a facade that can be lit up in 17 million colours, and nearly 650 LED information screens. With a capacity of 50,000 for sporting events and 65,000 for concerts, it is the biggest football stadium and indoor venue in the Nordic countries. After three years’ construction it opened in October 2012, and has seen major sporting events such as a Sweden vs England football match as well as hosting major musical names such as Bruce Springsteen and Roxette.
PERFORMANCE SPEC A key figure in the genesis of the audio system for the arena is Steve Liddle of Springwell Audio, a British consultant based in Sweden since 2005. He helped produce the tender spec, with Swedish audio consultant Ingmar Olsson, and was project leader during the installation phase. The tender spec is a performance specification, which for the most part encapsulates the client’s wishes and good practice, says Liddle. “We looked at the system handling, the client’s budget-setting exercise and the broad brushstrokes from the client’s consultants. We also incorporated UEFA and FIFA requirements, voice alarm standards, and local regulations – Sweden’s unique in that it has its own set of regulations for combined public
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address/voice alarm systems. There are also practical things that we know from experience that the end-user will want to have, but can sometimes get overlooked – like a mixing desk!” This spec defined such things as the number of PA zones, different acoustic spaces such as the bowl, concourses and areas of circulation, and set the required minimum SPLs and STIs and the desired frequency ranges. It didn’t propose a solution, although it did publish details of generic speaker types, and suggested locations for line arrays or point sources. Other key requirements included
here were maximum permissible cable losses; the level of redundancy required – eliminating all single points of failure; and specifying distribution over fibre. Unusually, Liddle and Olsson included
an EASE model of the stadium in the tender spec. “The benefit of this was that everyone was working from the same thing. If you issue architectural drawings and ask people to create their own EASE models, you’ll get as many models as bids, and they’ll all be slightly different, so you can’t compare like with like,” explains Liddle. During the budget-setting exercise Liddle and Olsson visited other stadiums, mainly to assist the electrical consultants. It was at Wembley Stadium that Liddle introduced Olsson to James Hurst, technical director of integrator LBI Projects.
Liddle and Olsson were asked to
review the tender bids, and recommend an integrator to the main
June 2013 55
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