BEST VIEW IN THE HOUSE


By Andrew Wareing


IT IS HOME TO THE TORONTO BLUE JAYS, THE TORONTO ARGONAUTS AND A COUNTLESS NUMBER OF EVENTS, RANGING FROM CONCERTS TO THE CIRCUS. THE ROGERS CENTRE IS ALSO THE HOME OF A STATE-OF-THE-ART HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM THAT HAS NOT ONLY ENHANCED ITS SECURITY, BUT ALSO ITS RISK MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONAL CAPABILITIES TO ENSURE EVERY PATRON HAS A POSITIVE AND MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE


ince opening its doors (and roof) in 1989, the Rogers Centre — formerly the SkyDome — in Toronto has hosted more than 2,000 events and 60 million visits.


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From that very first Toronto Blue Jays game on June 5, 1989, against the Mil- waukee Brewers, having to keep an eye on the coming and going of people in the 50,000-seat capacity stadium presented real challenges for Rogers Centre facility directors and security management personnel. Owned and operated by Rogers Com- munication, the Toronto landmark and home to the two-time World Series cham- pions Blue Jays had already seen a heavy investment made in wire and wireless technology over the years, which managed


28 SECURITY MATTERS • FALL 2011


to reduce some of the costs of its tradi- tional CCTV system. However, the need was soon identified for a better video sur- veillance system, one that could keep up with all of the security concerns, threats and issues a tourist attraction like the Rogers Centre presents.


For that reason, and with a $200,000 budget in hand, the Rogers Centre opted to upgrade its video surveillance system recently. To do so, it chose technology from Vancouver, B.C.-based Avigilon. Sim- plexGrinnell, based in Mississauga, Ont., was the integrator of record. More specifically, the downtown sta-


dium by the lake was fitted with 19 Avig- ilon HD Professional 16 megapixel cameras, primarily installed in the seating


area of the stadium with a mix of one, two, five, 11 and 16 megapixel cameras moni- toring the building’s perimeter, three Avig- ilon HD network video recorders that store surveillance footage, and Avigilon’s Control Center Enterprise network video manage- ment software with HD Stream Manage- ment. Assisting in improving bandwidth requirements is JPEG2000 compression technology, heavily used in other applica- tions, including the movie industry. “This stems from a question I posed to the market two or three years ago,” says Mario Coutinho, vice president of stadium operations and security for Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club and Rogers Centre, re- ferring to the impetus behind the upgrade. “How do we manage to have effective


Photo courtesy the T


oronto Blue Jays


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