Rockingham Cambio Cumbre Futsal Club
Sonance Speakers bring the winning edge to a new sporting complex and indoor playing facility.
25 August 2023
Story:/ Graeme Hague
The Rockingham Cambio Cumbre Futsal Club and Sports Facility – or in its shortened version, the Cumbre Sports Facility – is a new complex in Port Kennedy, Western Australia, located about 60kms south of Perth and dedicated to a growing range of indoor sports and also looking towards hosting relevant services like health clinics and physiotherapy services. Although the building is new, at the heart is the Cambio Cumbre Futsal club, a team that’s been national champions several times over and state champions almost every year since its foundation in 2013.
What is Futsal, you ask? (Yes, I had to Google it too.) Today, it’s a form of indoor soccer, but don’t be fooled that it’s a kind of vanilla version of the game for people who don’t like to play in the rain. Futsal originated in South America way back in the 1930s after Uruguay won the World Cup and the popularity of football exploded through the continent. Futsal was developed as a means to allow everybody, everywhere, to play at least a kind of soccer on smaller fields, both indoors and outdoors, and with frequent rotations of the five-a-side teams there was plenty of opportunity for everyone to get onto the field. The game was soon recognised as an excellent training and fitness activity for players of the traditional competition, and it became hugely accepted as a sport in its own right too.
In other words, Futsal is serious stuff all over the world, and it’s been around nearly 100 years.
IN POSITION
The Cumbre Sports Facility has two playing arenas, one is 40m x 20m and the second is 33m x 15m. The focus is, of course, Futsal. But both spaces could be configured for any indoor sport in the future, and at the moment offer Floorball – which is a style of indoor hockey – and 3×3 basketball, a half-court version that you see played on the streets in the US a lot and is apparently the largest urban team sport in the world.
The arenas and the facility in general needed a PA and music delivery system, and the design had to address the obvious drawbacks of large open spaces, high ceilings and hard surfaces on all sides – great for a cathedral-like reverb, not so good for clear sound. There would be lots of ambient noise on the court, and crowds (hopefully) going nuts off-field. Another problem was that the installed equipment had to be… ah, ball-proof and withstand the perils of footballs pinging around the room at high speed. Either that, or the speakers should be installed safely out of harm’s way while still performing properly.
Steve Watling from West Coast Hifi in Rockingham was asked to come up with a system to do the job, and in turn he got together with Joel Quioc from Amber Technology to figure out a design. As Steve explains, “You have to know what you’re doing, and experience goes a long way, but Joel introduced me to the EASE modelling software which is a big help when you’re dealing with sound design in large open areas. It gives you a good starting point to get complete coverage, but we found you could trim the figures back a bit. We were intent on providing a realistic, high-performing system and not trying the sell extra gear and speakers the client didn’t really need.”
HANG TIGHT
The design was based on a total of 30 Sonance PS-P83T eight-inch pendant speakers spread across four different zones in the facility with the main playing arenas getting 15 and 11 speakers respectively. The last four Sonance pendant speakers were distributed through two small zones. There is also a fifth zone using the wall-mounted version of the Sonance eight-inch model. All the zones are powered by MC2 T500-T and T1000-T amplifiers via an Australian Monitor ZoneMix8 unit. An Australian Monitor ES120P amplifier powers the reception zone.
Hanging so many pendant speakers from such tall ceilings, at some points 11 metres high, could have been problematic, but Steve and his crew were called into the project at exactly the right time in the final stages of the construction with the building essentially completed but without the all-important floors installed for the playing areas. So Steve’s install team could happily run amok with a scissor-lift to get everything in place. He says, “It took a little longer than expected only because the project was bigger than anyone anticipated. Still, it was all done in three or four days with such easy access all over the place.”
The rest of the system is quite straightforward. A Bluesound Professional B400S four-zone player routes the music of choice through the complex and a JTS RU-8012DB dual wireless microphone system doubles as an announcement microphone or for any commentating from the sports floor.
KICKING GOALS
Steve Watling is enormously impressed with the Sonance speakers and how their tight focus does the job perfectly. “The sound is so clear, and with the placement and design, we’re not hearing any reverberation or slap-back off the walls. It’s hard to believe, in such a large open space, but that’s the beauty of these Sonance speakers.”
Nestor Fonseca, the founder and General Manager of the Rockingham Cambio Cumbre Futsal Club and Sports Facility, is likewise extremely pleased with the end result. “The system works fantastically well – we couldn’t be happier with Steve and his team for what they have done.”
Steve Watling is also full of praise for the help and support he gets from Amber Technology. “Joel is brilliant. Nothing is too hard for him to get done, and he’s there whenever you need him. Amber Technology is a great partner to have in these kinds of projects. You couldn’t ask for more.”
You can only imagine how much bigger Futsal will become in Australia when such excellent venues like the Rockingham Cambio Cumbre Futsal Club and Sports Facility are made available for everyone to enjoy. There are the other sports it hosts too and plans to do more.
And don’t forget – you never have to play in the rain.
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The sound is so clear. It’s hard to believe, in such a large open space, but that’s the beauty of these Sonance speakers
GEAR LIST
- Sonance PS-P83T pendant loudspeaker
- Sonance PS-S83T surface mount loudspeaker
- MC2 T1000-T amplifier
- MC2 T500-T amplifier
- Australian Monitor ES120P amplifier
- Australian Monitor ZoneMix8
- Bluesound Professional B400S four-zone player
- JTS RU-8012DB wireless mic system
RESPONSES