The beautiful Middle Eastern state of Qatar recently played host to the official year-end championships of the Sony Ericsson WTA tour. The hugely successful tour culminated with Venus Williams winning her first season-ending title and Cara Black and Liezel Huber defending their doubles crown. The tournament was held at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash complex in Doha which underwent a major AV and broadcast systems upgrade in order to host the event. The systems were designed and implemented by Doha-based systems integrator, AV-Tech.
“This is the first time that Qatar has hosted such a world-class tennis event, and we are proud to be a part of it,” explained AV-Tech’s general manager, Hadi Arzouni. “Furthermore, the complex will be hosting the Championships for the next two years, so it was imperative that we selected only the very best equipment from the top manufacturers. Our first choice for amplification is always Lab.gruppen for reasons of reliability and sound quality, and this installation was no exception.”
AV-Tech installed comprehensive AV systems throughout the main stadium showcourt and practice courts 1 and 2. Five Lab.gruppen fP 6400 amplifiers powered a Community point source loudspeaker system which was augmented by three R6-Basshorns. The versatile 4-channel Lab.gruppen C 5:4X amplifier which is specifically designed for installed applications with relatively low power output requirements was selected to power the sidefill speakers and the VIP seating area system. For each of the practice courts, AV-Tech opted for four R.5HP Community loudspeakers powered by a single Lab.gruppen C10:4X. “Lab.gruppen’s C Series are ideal for this sort of application,” confirmed Arzouni. “Whatever your needs, you can be sure that C Series will have an amplifier of the channel density and power rating you require. It considerably reduces the amount of rackspace you need, it’s cost-effective, and it’s Lab.gruppen so you know it will be reliable and sound good!”
AV-Tech also supplied a complete broadcast solution for the Al Jazeera Broadcasting Sports Channel so that matches could be broadcast live across a number of different networks, and a complete video distribution system across ten 55” LCD screens throughout the campus. Finally, a large Daktronics HD Video LED display screen relayed the action from Centre Court to the athletes village situated between the two practice courts.
“This was a complex installation that had to be completed within a limited time-frame,” recalled Arzouni. “AV-Tech engineers worked round the clock for nearly two months, but we delivered the project on time for what was a highly successful event.”