Purpose-built home for major events as part of the multi-million dollar development leading up to the 2000 Olympic Games, Australia’s Sydney Showground remains a world-class venue, hosting nearly 150 national and international events annually, including music festivals, sporting events, exhibitions, trade shows and the Sydney Royal Easter Show. After 25 years of operation, the venue’s A/V system has been updated using Connect Series amplifiers from LEA Professional.
The site comprises numerous buildings, including Giants Stadium, the Dome and Exhibition Complex, Charles Moses Stadium, Howie Complex and the Sydney Royal Stables. Showground staff contacted The PA People to help overhaul the PA system that serves them. PA People Project Manager Ross Ford led their installation.
‘From an operational point of view, LEA amplifiers offered us several key features that made them easy to integrate,’ he says. The offer the ability to bridge channels, ingest Dante inputs and use analogue inputs for the fire trip lines, plus they’re a lot smaller and more compact than many competitive offerings.’
Each pavilion has a standalone public address system, with a site-wide system in place for emergency communications. A major element of the A/V upgrades was the complete system monitoring and supervision. Because the systems in some of the smaller venues are used infrequently, problems with them were only identified immediately prior to an event during testing. Now, relevant staff receive an email notifying them of device issues or signal path disruptions in real-time.
A combination of nine LEA Connect Series 354D amplifiers and nine LEA Connect Series 704D amplifiers were used in the smaller venues. The CS354D is a Dante-enabled four-channel amplifier delivering 350W/channel, while the CS704D deliver 700W/channel. Both are suited for small-to-medium scale installations and support high-Z (70V or 100V) and low-Z selectable by channel.
For the Dome and Exhibition Complex, PA People installed 13 Connect Series 1504D – LEA’s flagship high-power IoT-enabled amplifier. A 2U-high, four-channel amplifier, this delivers1.5kW/channel for large concert venues, arenas and stadia. The CS1504D is Dante-enabled and supports high-Z (70V or 100V) and low-Z selectable by channel, providing capabilities for possible expansion.
A significant challenge for the installation team was that many venues were in constant use, so finding time to perform the upgrades and swap out the gear had to be carefully planned. LEA’s Sharkware software, made device configuration simple, saving the team significant commissioning time.
‘Because of the quality of LEA’s amplifiers and the ease of being able to implement them in the infrastructure, we were able to swap out 15 amplifiers in a few days,’ says Ford. ‘That time included tuning and setting up all the system parameters and making them operational.’
‘Sydney Showground is a longstanding client of ours and the staff are great to work with,’ he adds. ‘They are very respectful of our professional capability in making recommendations to them based on product performance. The proof is that all the A/V systems worked as intended. It’s a good working relationship; having the right products like LEA’s amplifiers is the key.’
‘The flexibility and performance of our PA system is crucial to the safe and effective performance of our venue,’ says Jonathan Seward, Head of RAS Property and Sydney Royal Easter Show Operations. ‘We are thrilled with the positive system performance outcome, a fit-for-purpose solution and our working relationship with the PA People has been exceptional.’
More: https://papeople.com.au
