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Sports LED

St. Mary’s Stadium Becomes First LED-lit Arena in Europe

Southampton sports fans are in for a treat this year as St. Mary’s stadium has become the first stadium in Europe to provide full LED lighting. As I’ve noted before, LED lights have been advancing to the point where they are more energy-efficient as well as more cost-effective than traditional bulbs. Since these lights are long-lasting, they will reduce the amount of new lamps the stadium must install each year. Best of all, lighting in the stadium will be enhanced with improved brightness.

The improvements were conducted by the club after the Premier League issued guidance for the 2015 season asking for increased brightness. In many European stadiums, the lights are inadequate for safe football playing. The lighting improvement will continue the sports club’s tradition of lighting excellence, being the first stadium in England to have floodlights installed 64 years ago.

Ian Williams, the club’s CTO, commented that the lights were the beginning of the club’s new partnership with Vision Accendo lighting. The company specializes in building energy-efficient LED lights for use in stadiums, commercial applications, and even home use. The lights will provide 360 degree lighting from all angles of the stadium.

Unlike traditional florescent lights commonly used by football clubs across Europe, these new lights are almost flicker-free. This means that slow-motion replays will look much better as each frame will be smoother. Compared to the league’s guidance that new lights should have no more than a 6% flicker rate, the .2% flicker rate of this new equipment will put St. Mary’s far above any other stadium in Europe.\

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