Stadium sound system Caribbean
Every Seat, Every Word: Sounding the Brian Lara Cricket Academy
How a modern, modelled stadium system, designed and built in about 100 days, is still carrying major T20 and CPL matches today, at a fraction of what older systems cost.
Look down on the Brian Lara Cricket Academy from the air and the seats in the main stand spell out two numbers: 400 and 501. They are Brian Lara’s two great world records. His 400 not out against England in Antigua in 2004 is still the highest individual score in Test cricket, and the first time a batsman won back the Test record after losing it. His 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston in 1994 is still the highest score in first-class cricket history, and its only quintuple century.
A venue built around numbers like that sets its own standard. When we were asked to design and deliver its sound system, that was the bar: a stadium named after a record-breaker shouldn’t have a sound system that’s merely “good enough.”
The Academy in Tarouba, San Fernando, holds about 15,000 spectators across its stands and grass banks, with club seating, lounges, executive boxes, exhibition space and indoor training facilities. Since the 2017 CPL finals it has hosted the biggest cricket in the region, including matches at the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.
The Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Tarouba. Lara’s 400 and 501 are picked out in the seating of the main stand.
The brief
The project was managed by UDeCOTT, the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago. We worked from UDeCOTT’s tender documents, and our team brought what it had learned on other major grounds: the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad, Kensington Oval in Barbados and the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. That experience led us to propose changes to the tender where we knew a different approach would perform better.
The schedule was tight: about a month for design, then just over 100 days to complete and commission everything, including more than 45,000 feet of cable.
The acoustic challenge is one every open-air stadium shares. Every spectator, from the front row to the back of the stand, needs to hear announcements clearly. At the same time, the sound must not spill across the playing field, where it bounces off the opposite stands and turns into a smeared echo that makes everything harder to understand.
The design: more, smaller and closer
The original approach relied on fewer, larger speaker cabinets. Based on our stadium experience, we went the other way: many smaller cabinets mounted under the canopy, each aimed at its own section of seating. Keeping the speakers closer to the listeners lets each one cover its section accurately at a lower level, instead of blasting from a distance and hoping it carries.
Match night: Community loudspeakers under the canopies cover each section of seating from close range.
Before anything was installed, we modelled the whole bowl in EASE acoustic software. Across 5,666 calculation points in the seating areas, the model predicted an average of 98.6 dB in the speech range (1–4 kHz), with a standard deviation of just 3.16 dB. In plain terms, the level is consistent from seat to seat, with no dead zones and no hot spots.
EASE model of direct sound level across the seating, 1–4 kHz: average 98.6 dB, standard deviation 3.16 dB.
The system includes:
- 120 Community R Series weather-resistant loudspeakers (R.5 and R.35, Community is now part of Biamp) under the stand canopies and covering the playing areas
- 52 Community C Series ceiling speakers for the indoor spaces
- Two Electro-Voice NetMax N8000 digital matrix processors, networked over OMNEO/Dante, serving the north and south stands
- Racks of Electro-Voice PA2400T, Q66 and Q1212 amplifiers, with Furman power sequencing
- Electro-Voice TPI-5 touch panels so each stand can be controlled independently, plus full computer control for advanced settings
- An announcer’s booth with a compact Yamaha mixer, Shure wireless microphones, a Shure BRH441M broadcast headset, a desk microphone, a media player and studio monitors
Check out Community professional loudspeakers
Simple on the surface
The most important design decision may be one no spectator ever notices. Everything complicated, including processing, routing, protection and zoning, is locked away behind the scenes. Staff power the whole system up with one button on the TPI-5. The announcer’s booth is deliberately simple: a small Yamaha mixer takes the DJ feed and announcements, and that’s all that’s needed on match day.
The announcer’s booth: a compact mixer, wireless mics and a broadcast headset. Nothing more is needed on match day.
That’s intentional. A stadium system gets used by different staff, DJs and event crews from season to season. If running it depends on one person remembering a complicated sequence, it will eventually be run badly.
| Keeping complex systems out of the eyes and hands of day-to-day staff is how a system stays sounding the way it was designed. |
As with every Streamline project, the full system was labelled, as-built drawings were produced and handed over, and the venue staff were trained.
The result
Nine years on, the system is still in use, carrying major T20 and CPL matches. We delivered a modern, professional system at roughly a tenth of what an older stadium system had cost to install, with a three-year warranty on the full system.
Credit belongs to UDeCOTT here. Working with them, we were able to cut through the bureaucracy that so often slows public projects and install what was right for the venue, rather than what was easiest to get through the process.
The amplifier racks: Electro-Voice PA2400T, Q66 and Q1212 amplifiers with Furman power sequencing, every cable labelled.
Why this matters for the Caribbean
Stadium sound in the region has a mixed record. Too often a system is designed on paper and never modelled, a few large boxes are expected to cover a whole stand, and the installation is handed over with unlabelled cables, no drawings and no one who understands how it works. When something fails before a big match, the owner discovers how much that shortcut costs.
The root of the problem is skills. Very few people in the Caribbean hold AVIXA’s CTS certifications and audio-visual work is often done as a side job by staff whose main trade is something else. Stadiums are unforgiving. Coverage, intelligibility, weatherproofing, redundancy and life safety all have to be designed in from the start, not fixed afterwards.
What to ask before you award a stadium audio contract
| 1 | Has the design been acoustically modelled? Ask to see the coverage map and the numbers: average level and consistency across the seating, not just a speaker count. |
| 2 | What stadium experience does the team have? Ask which venues they’ve delivered, and whether those systems are still in service. |
| 3 | Who holds the certifications? Ask whether the designers and installers are CTS-certified and if they are full time employees. |
| 4 | What warranty and local support come with it? Brands and warranties vary widely, ask about warranties and parts availability. |
| 5 | What do you get at handover? As-built drawings, professional labels, manuals, training and every password. No integrator should hold a public venue’s system hostage. |
| 6 | If the quote is higher, ask why. The answer usually tells you what the cheaper bid left out. |
Book a free assessmentStreamline Systems has been designing and installing sound, AV and security systems since 2007, for venues in Trinidad and across the Caribbean. We don’t charge for meetings or basic assessments. If you’re planning a stadium, arena or sports facility, or living with one that doesn’t sound right, contact us before the tender is written. mike@streamlinesystemsltd.com | streamlinesystemsltd.com |
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