Sir John Guise Stadium, Papua New Guinea: stadium sound system design and commissioning

Project snapshot

• Venue: Sir John Guise Stadium, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
• Sector: Sports stadium, indoor sports complex, conference facilities
• Scope: Design and commissioning of a new sound system for the main stadium, indoor stadium and conference rooms

The venue

Sir John Guise Stadium is Papua New Guinea's premier venue for major sporting, public and private events. The precinct includes the national athletics stadium, which hosts all of the country's track and field events, a national indoor sports complex, and a set of conference and event facilities. Each of those spaces has different demands on a sound system, and the site sees everything from international athletics meets to concerts and government functions.

How we got involved

Audio Connect is a preferred installer for Jansen Audio, the New Zealand distributor for a number of the professional brands we design with. When the stadium project came up, Jansen approached us to take on the international design and commissioning work. It became a two-venue programme: alongside the stadium we also delivered the sound system for the nearby Taurama Aquatic Centre and Indoor Sports Complex.

The brief

Install a new sound system covering three quite different environments:

• The main stadium. Open-air stands, long throw distances, and speech that has to stay intelligible over crowd noise and across a full athletics track.
• The indoor stadium. A hard, reverberant space where poorly placed loudspeakers turn announcements into mush.
• The conference rooms. Smaller rooms needing clear speech reinforcement and simple operation by venue staff.

Our approach

Outdoor stadium audio in the tropics is unforgiving. Heat, humidity and direct weather rule out standard indoor loudspeakers, so the design was built around ONE Systems direct-weather loudspeakers, which are purpose-built for stadium and coastal use rather than indoor boxes given a weatherproof coating. Coverage was modelled to reach the seating areas evenly without spraying energy back across the field, and the indoor complex was treated as its own zone with loudspeakers positioned to control reflections.

Our role was design and commissioning. That means specifying the loudspeaker layout, amplification and processing, then being on site to tune every zone, set levels and limiting, test the paging and announcement paths, and hand the system over so local staff can run it day to day.

The result

A sound system that covers the national stadium, the indoor complex and the conference rooms as independent zones, tuned for clear speech and capable music reproduction, and built from loudspeakers designed to survive the climate for the long haul.

Need a stadium or large-venue system?

Whether it's a sports ground in Auckland or a venue further afield, we design, supply and commission loudspeaker systems for large and outdoor spaces. See our AV installation service, browse installation speakers, or get in touch for a site visit.