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Catalyst Chooses Community for Harlequins Stadium
Catalyst Sound & Communication Engineers, regional operators in London and the Thames Valley, has just completed the installation of a new PA system for the Harlequins’ Twickenham Stoop stadium using Community R-Series loudspeakers.
Founded in 1866 as the Harlequin Football Club, the team was nomadic until 1906 when the Quins were invited by the Rugby Football Union to use the new national stadium in Twickenham. In those early days only one or two internationals were played there during the season and it wasn't long before the RFU ground became the Headquarters of the Harlequin Football Club. In 1963, Quins acquired an athletics ground with 14 acres just over the road from the RFU ground, which became the Harlequin training pitch. This has subsequently become the team’s home, known for many years as the Stoop Memorial Ground, before being renamed to the Twickenham Stoop in 2005.
Twickenham Stoop is today home to both the NEC Harlequins Rugby Union and Harlequins RL Rugby League teams. With Rugby Union playing the winter season and Rugby League the summer season the stadium is in use throughout the year and in all weathers.
The site itself, situated in the centre of rugby excellence, provided the club with a ground that could be developed. Over the years much has been done to improve the facilities, starting in 1997 with the introduction of the East Stand which seats 4,200 spectators. There are 25 boxes for corporate hospitality, and inside the stand there is a restaurant facility and three large bar areas.
In 2005 the Lexus stand was opened, running along the length of the West touchline. The Lexus stand brought high quality new facilities to the Stoop, including a new members' bar, a new club shop, 14 corporate hospitality boxes, three new corporate lounges, new player and officials' changing facilities, new club offices and new media facilities. Furthermore, the introduction of the Lexus stand increased the capacity of the Stoop to 12,700.
Catalyst Sound and Communications Engineers have been handling the installation and maintenance of the public address facilities for the Stoop for over 4 years and were again appointed to design and install the system for the Lexus stand in 2006. The system is required for recorded music and live commentary and had to meet the usual requirements for open air sports facilities; very high intelligibility with tightly controlled dispersion to give full audience coverage whilst minimising spillage from the ground. The system also has to have the power to maintain that intelligibility over the level of an enthusiastic crowd and withstand the elements all year round.
For Richard Hall, owner of Catalyst, one product was the clear choice to achieve this. “We installed 16 Community R.5-99X to the front edge of the stand canopy to achieve the ideal coverage with minimum spill”, he comments. “The audio performance and dispersion of these loudspeakers is perfect for this application and has given us an excellent system. Each loudspeaker is fitted with an external 300W/100V line transformer and driven independently from a 480W/100V line amplifier. This gives comfortable headroom for fierce bursts of celebratory music - a pleasingly frequent happening! It also accommodates the de-rating of the amplifier when powered by 24V DC battery-based mains power back-up”. Richard concludes, “We believe we can rely on the Community brand and this product in particular for its all-weather reliability and operational longevity. Certainly, the enthusiasm and support of the distributor, CUK Audio, has been genuine and really very impressive”.
18th October 2006
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