AV Magazine: Connectivity at a 100,000-Seat Cricket Ground
Diversified confidently undertook the complex network integration at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, including the deployment of Optocore technology.
The Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) in Australia committed more than AUD$50M to a substantial upgrade to its 100,000-seat stadium, including an AUD$25M contract for a site-wide PA, transport, network and connectivity upgrade.
Consultants Auditoria conceived the system with Diversified leading the integration as head contractor. As the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere and the second largest cricket ground in the world, the project was quite the undertaking. To give an idea of scale, more than 3,000 speakers now populate the seating bowl, function rooms and VIP suites, atria, internal concourse areas and exit gates.
Fiber network specialist, Optocore, was vital to the network and connectivity implementation. The network design uses two signal transport systems—one for DiGiCo and one for Q-SYS. The Optocore implementation successfully connects between the broadcast video and audio equipment, and the DigiCo system.
“It made sense to include the Optocore router to automate the switching, which has proved faultless and a lot more convenient so far,” says Daniel Woodward, senior project manager at Diversified.
“This is provided across multiple audio platforms and simplifies setup and configuration, which in turn assists in the game day operations.”
Learn about Diversified’s end-to-end audio upgrade for the Melbourne Cricket Ground >
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