Audience systems interactive

newsletter

Come and meet us at Sportex Middle East

This year's Sportex Middle East / Gulf Stadia show is fast approaching. The event will be held at the World Trade Centre, Dubai on 27-29th November.

The show focuses on sporting facilities and equipment, a large and growing market in the Middle East, and is backed by the Dubai Sports City project. Audience Systems will be exhibiting in Hall 4, Stand G7.

Audience Systems is already active in the Gulf region, having played a key role in building two of the premier facilities for the 2006 Asian Games in Qatar - the Al Sadd Stadium and Khalifa Sports City.

If you would like the opportunity to view our latest range of chairs suitable for sports facilities, or would like to talk to us about how you can help us build our business in the region, please come and visit our stand. If you would like to arrange a meeting at the show, please contact Stephen MacDonald - by email using the link or by phone on +44(0)1373 865050. For more information about Sportex, visit http://www.sportexmiddleeast.com.

New Frontiers for Audience Systems

Audience Systems is pleased to announce the expansion of its operations in the USA, with the appointment of a number of new distributors to serve customers there.

Already two major projects have been secured in the US for next year, with Audience Systems supplying large retractable systems for both Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady, New York State and the Max M. Fisher Music Centre, home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. For both venues, the TX Telescopic Platform System will be fitted with fully upholstered Espace 628 chairs - a compact and elegant solution for multipurpose auditoria.

The new distributors are:

For a full list of contact details, please contact Nina Simpson. We can also deal directly
with customers in areas not served by our distributors. We expect to be making further announcements of new dealerships in the coming months.

Industry News - Major reviews of standards and guidelines for spectator seating

A new European standard for spectator facilities is soon to be launched, with the two major guidelines regarding seating layout and safety in the UK also currently under review.

The new European set of standards for spectator facilities, EN13200, is currently in its final stages of preparation and will be released within months.

BASES, the British Association of Seating Equipment Suppliers, has made a significant contribution to the EN standard, but is also working on a revision of its own guidelines "Recommendations for the Specification and Use of Tiered, Telescopic and Demountable Seating". The revised document will serve as a supplement to the EN standard, acting as an authoritative design guide for seating suppliers in the UK.

The "Green Guide", produced by the Football Licensing Authority (FLA) and regarded as a key guide to safety at UK sports venues, is also in the early stages of a review, with the first draft expected by mid 2007. Information about progress of the review will be posted on the FLA's website, with recommended seat size being one of the items expected to be reviewed - watch this space for more information.

All three new documents will be regularly referenced by Audience Systems' engineering team when designing chairs and layouts, to ensure that customers' venues comply with the most up-to-date legislation.

Another major arena for Audience Systems

Audience Systems have secured the contract to supply seating to the UK's latest major arena development.

The King's Waterfront development in Liverpool combines an arena, conference and exhibition facilities as well as residential and retail space - and will form the centrepiece for Liverpool's European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008.

Liverpool Arena

Audience Systems will supply seating for the arena, which will lie at the centre of the development. There will be a mixture of fixed and telescopic tiering, both of which will be equipped with the same upholstered chair. The Accolade is a relatively new addition to Audience Systems' range, which has already been used at the new Arena Riga in Latvia, the Jubilee Sports Complex in St Petersburg, Russia and the Bournemouth International Centre in the UK. Audience Systems is also supplying auditorium chairs for the VIP areas.

Following successful co-operations on the Manchester Evening News Arena and Oberhausen Arena in Germany, Audience Systems will again be working with Bovis Lend Lease to deliver the project, which will be complete in 2008.

Solutions

Audience Systems has been again been working with customers to engineer custom solutions to fit the needs of
their venues.

At Birmingham Town Hall, removable chairs are used in the flat floor area, but these are stored in a gap beneath the stage just 900mm high. Audience Systems worked with the customer to come up with this unique "pigeon toed" design, allowing the chairs to nest together when out of use. Special trolleys were also designed, which run underneath the stage on tracks.

At the Grand Theatre in Calgary, several tapered telescopic units are used to form a curved seating layout. The room is a tight fit, and the units have to be placed very precisely to ensure that the minimum safe walkways are left at the edge of the seating. Audience Systems designed special locating pins for the building to ensure the telescopic units could be located in exactly the same place every time.

At Martini Plaza in the Netherlands, standard telescopic units are joined to units which were "truncated" to the third row (ie their front row of seating is at the height of the third row of adjoining units). Our engineers adapted the power operation system to allow all these units to still be closed together with a single button press - the first two rows of the standard units close before the truncated unit begins to fold back.

The special removable chairs used at Birmingham Town Hall

The Grand Theatre, Calgary


"Truncated" telescopic units at Martini Plaza, Netherlands

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