CASE STUDIES

Amitie and stade pierre claver divpungui stadia

System Solutions, part of the Gearhouse South Africa Group of Companies, was commissioned by ANGT (Agence Nationale Des Grands Travaux) who represent the Gabon government, to design, supply and construct large format outdoor LED screens and a control system each for the brand-new stadium in Libreville and the existing stadium in Port Gentil.

The Amitie stadium in Libreville - a gift from the Chinese government - needed to be completed in time to host the 28th CAF Orange Africa Cup of Nations in January 2012 which was co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Their successful installation history in South Africa's FNB and Moses Mabhida Stadiums made System Solutions a natural choice.
System Solutions, in close collaboration with ANGT, designed a good quality, cost-effective LED screen solution (8.192m wide by 4.606m high) with integrated control for the stadium.  They erected an identical screen at the Stade Pierre Claver Divpungui stadium in Port Gentil, situated 700 kms away. Both installations were completed by mid December.
Due to the time lines, two separate System Solutions technical teams were stationed in Libreville and Port Gentil, respectively. "We treated the two installations completely independently," says Roger Feldmann, GM of System Solutions, "The transport infrastructure in Gabon can be unpredictable and with little more than six weeks onsite, we needed to eradicate any possibility for error."

Part of the company's plans involved sub-contracting local companies which not  only assisted with logistics but ensured that local businesses derived benefit from the contract as well. A Libreville based manufacturer fabricated and installed the steel structure as well as the composite aluminium cladding, complementing the progressive stadium design.
"We were very impressed with their manufacturing facility," comments Feldmann " and it meant a great saving on freight costs for our client as well as a substantial time saving for us. We also contracted  other local suppliers for excavation work, HVAC and power requirements and  other extras."

The LED display screens themselves were made up of Unilumin P16 panels using Cree LED chips. The control system consists of an FSR Compass CP 200 presentation switch with preview and program outputs. This unit manages all video playback equipment as well as multiple live broadcast camera feeds provided by the outside broadcast unit.
Downstream of this there is an Indie-400 HD unit also from FSR which handles the LED screen image scaling. In addition to these, a bespoke scoreboard and master control system using AV Stumpfl’s award winning ISEO 2 Platform was implemented at the Amitie stadium.
Both projects were co-ordinated on site by System Solutions Project Manager Karen Blythe.