Stadium solutions for optimising fan experience and safety

By Chris Kaldi, Johnson Controls Building Technologies & Solutions

Creating the ultimate sports and entertainment experience for fans begins with a venue that is safe, secure, comfortable and connected. Today, advanced technology is making arenas of all sizes smarter by optimising comfort and security levels for patrons, players, performers and staff, while also enhancing building management and energy efficiency for facilities managers (FMs).

Optimising a venue’s building management systems, including HVAC and security, can make a big difference to the overall spectator experience. Sustainability targets are also becoming increasingly important for FMs, who are often working behind the scenes to identify ways to drive operational efficiency and cost savings without harming the environment.

Maintaining the comfort of thousands of patrons while reducing CO₂ emissions and running costs is an ongoing challenge for operators of large venues; however, stadiums have become pioneers in leading the way forward in sustainability and innovation around the world.

Providing building management, security, fire protection and HVAC upgrades, and ensuring they are not only more efficient, but also operating with better environmental outcomes, is a facilities manager’s top prirority. A great example is the Golden 1 Centre in Sacramento California, home of the Sacramento Kings basketball team. The stadium is working towards LEED Gold certification by being 100 per cent solar-powered.

Closer to home, AAMI Park – Melbourne’s premier sports and entertainment complex, located in the heart of the Melbourne & Olympic Parks precinct – achieved substantial cost and carbon emission savings by reviewing its mechanical plant operations. The world-class facility hosts large crowds of up to 30,000 people, with a constant schedule of rugby league, Super Rugby and A-League events, as well as sell-out concerts for a range of different artists.

Meaningful savings were made by analysing the HVAC requirements, including isolating the HVAC equipment’s operational zones, which led to greater comfort levels for tenants and patrons, and also helped to minimise energy wastage. 

As a result, the mechanical plant’s electrical output reduced by almost half (47 per cent) and its CO₂ reduced by 815 tonnes, delivering in an impressive outcome that has helped the venue exceed its sustainability targets.

Integrating smarter stadium control strategies
The ability to capture measurable data and pinpoint exactly where energy reduction improvements could be made without having to replace the existing plant equipment is integral to the outcome of a successful project. This involved tracking the venue’s performance at each and any of its electrical, water and gas meters.

Reporting and analysing data allows facility managers to draw essential information that can identify where valuable cost and efficiency savings can be made. By harnessing this data, it’s also possible to deliver an enhanced stadium-side system that optimises comfort and security for fans.

Creating smart stadiums that meet energy, security and operational objectives comes down to close collaboration between the venue owner, engineering consultants and construction teams.

Ideally, engaging relevant experts from the early planning stages can help manage the planning, design, installation, integration, commissioning and service of technology systems, and can assist venues to achieve an optimal level of connectivity, security and interoperability.  This collaborative approach can also save contracting time, reduce risk and reduce costs.

Depending on size and layout, a stadium can host a varied number of people, typically in the thousands. The sheer volume of people and multiple entry points necessary to manage crowd control and security presents unique challenges.

While today’s modern stadiums are purpose-built to provide fans with a fully immersive experience, with seating bowls designed to bring spectators as close as possible to the action by optimising views, a combination of the right security technologies can further help stadium operators to increase safety and mitigate risk in the event of a threat or live incident. 

Integrating security and access control with a smart building management system can facilitate the intuitive control of different areas throughout the stadium when it is most critical. A large stadium may feature hundreds of high-definition CCTV cameras that need to be monitored via a central security control room, providing complete visibility across the entire stadium at all times.  Extensive camera networks may also require a video management solution that can provide stadium operations’ staff and security teams the ability to immediately share critical video footage, or zoom in on a specific individual from across the stadium using seamless virtual technologies. 

Building on this functionality, integrated access control with video management technologies can support high-level security protocols by interacting geospatially, and integrating with other critical information such as automatic identification systems, license plate recognition, facial recognition, as well as weather, traffic and social media feeds. This sophisticated level of sharing cross-platform data can enhance security by giving staff greater situational awareness, which can result in a faster response to incidents or prevent unauthorised entry to restricted zones. 

Through the use of cutting edge solutions, stadiums are becoming smarter, safer and more connected environments, delivering an enhanced experience for fans while helping operators improve their bottom line.