Prosound is proud to have provided our technical expertise and hands-on skills to the international team who delivered the Al-Rayyan Stadium, a 45,000-seat mega stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar, for the 2022 iteration of the FIFA World Cup.
Over the company’s 50 years, Prosound has consulted on the commissioning, design, installation, and maintenance of audio system for more than 70 stadia worldwide. Our team solidified its authority as a technical provider of choice in the stadia and arena market when we collaborated with some of the world’s foremost consulting engineers, architects, and building contractors to rebuild and refurbish ten stadia in South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
“Since our inception 50 years ago, Prosound has always excelled in providing the skills and project management capabilities to deliver on large-scale stadia projects. From inception, Prosound started setting records by delivering one of the world’s largest audio solutions (at the time) for Ellis Park Stadium in 1981 using Electro-Voice technology,” says Mark Malherbe, Director at Prosound.
“Over the past five decades, we have worked with some of the world’s leading equipment manufacturers, engineers, and architects to deliver world-class stadia across Africa and all over the world.
“After our successful involvement with the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Prosound continued to market the skills and experience we gained to the international sporting fraternity,” Mark explains.
In 2017, Mark traveled to Qatar to explore partnership opportunities ahead of the bidding process for the stadia that were to be prepared for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Working relationships were quickly established with Andre Schoombie, a technical consultant in the region and a long-term friend of Prosound and Infomatica Qatar (IQ), a respected technology infrastructure company in the region. Prosound and IQ formalized an agreement for the joint supply, design, and installation of audiovisual systems for the Al Rayyan Stadium project. As part of this process, Prosound needed to be accredited by the Qatari Supreme Council as a technical provider with the necessary skills and experience to deliver on the job.
During the course of the project, IQ redirected its attention to other stadia, leaving Prosound to deal directly with the primary construction contractor, L&T.
The decision was made early on in the project to rely on Bosch Communication Products to provide the public address and voice announcement (PAVA) systems.
“In addition to having the hands-on experience and skills needed to bring the Al-Rayyan Stadium project to life, Prosound has one of the longest-standing relationships with Electro-Voice in the industry. We were, therefore, confident that we would be able to deliver on our responsibility matrix to the highest possible standards,” Mark explains.
Over our four-year-long involvement with the Al-Rayyan Stadium project, Prosound delivered on a comprehensive responsibility matrix as assigned by L&T. Our scope of work included design oversight of the following:
- The hearing assistance and audio description systems, designed for hard-of-hearing spectators
- Public address, voice alarm, and audio distribution systems
- The content distribution system
- Installation of a modular LED display screen, including video matrix, processors, audio embedder, and video transmission systems
- Audio visual systems for the venue operations centre
- Commentary systems
“We are incredibly proud of our team’s achievements at the newly named Ahmad bin Ali Stadium stadium over the past four years. A project of this nature always comes with an array of challenges, and this was no exception. One of the greatest the entire international team had to overcome was our inability to be onsite during the international ban on travel due to Covid-19. However, we continued to push the project forward by means of constant consultation with professionals on the ground during the lockdown. Ultimately, we were able to deliver on our mandate, on time and within budget – which is what our clients have rightfully come to expect,” Mark concludes.
At the conclusion of this prestigious project, head Prosound design engineer Charles Markotter is on-site at the stadium for the duration of the FIFA World Cup, overseeing the smooth operation of all the systems.