Alumni Stadium, home to the Boston College Eagles football team, recently installed a new EAW sound reinforcement system to upgrade the game day experience for fans. Time, weather, and wind had taken their toll on the previous system making its replacement a necessity before the start of the 2014 season.
Boston College's Athletic department called upon Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon, & Williams (WJHW) to design a new upper deck sound reinforcement system that would "weather the weather" and upgrade the rest of the stadium at the same time. All Pro Sound, headquartered in Pensacola, Florida, handled the installation of the system.
"We decided to utilize a custom steerable column array loudspeaker solution from EAW," explains Kevin Day, WJHW. "We looked at active arrays, but given the weather, thought a passive soultion would be a better fit. We had worked with Kenton Forsythe at EAW to create a passive steerable column array loudspeaker for another installation that we knew would be ideal for this situation – and it has been."
A total of 14 weatherized column array loudspeakers – each consisting of one LF and one HF multi-channel loudspeaker module – were installed on poles to cover the north and south end zones and west upper deck seating areas. All Pro Sound installed custom hardware for mounting the main loudspeakers to cover the upper seating areas. "The new column loudspeakers provide higher quality sound and more even coverage of the seating area while minimizing spillage to nearby neighborhoods during the games," John Fuqua, vice president All Pro Sound adds. "The steerable capability of the arrays allow the sound to be aimed to cover the desired seating without compromising adjacent areas."
Because the upper deck seating on the east side of the stadium did not require a pole mount loudspeaker solution, All Pro Sound refit new, custom mounts to the superstructure and installed five EAW QX364-WP to cover that area. During the renovation the lower deck loudspeakers were also upgraded. A distributed system of twenty-two EAW MK Series loudspeakers blanket the main seating area.
