Viola Park, the new home of Fiorentina football club
The Rocco B. Commisso Viola Park was inaugurated on 11 October 2023. This is a brand new, eco-sustainable sport center in the town of Bagno a Ripoli near Florence, Italy. Nestled among the verdant hills that surround Florence, Viola Park is a prime example of entrepreneurship at the service of sport with a view to enabling young boys and girls to become football players.
VIOLA PARK BY THE NUMBERS
ACF Fiorentina’s new sport center is the largest in Italy and among the largest in all of Europe. As well as including several training fields, it is also host to all the support structures the teams require. Here is the list of features that the center boasts of:
- 20 ACF Fiorentina teams
- 12 regulation pitches: 5 grass, 5 hybrid, 2 mini-fields for children, and 1 for goalkeepers
- 2 stadia seating 4500 spectators, named Curva Fiesole with 3000 seats, and Davide Astori with 1500 seats;
- 4 exercise facilities with over 130 training stations and an 80 m2 rehabilitation area
- 12 buildings
- Dormitories with 75 rooms and 116 beds;
- Media center, medical and wellness center, 25m swimming pool and two vascular pools, cryotherapy facility, sauna and Turkish bath
Professional Show is honored to have been chosen as the technological and system integration partner for most of the audio, video and lighting systems of the Viola Park.
The main installations were designed and built for the media center, the television studio, the Curva Fiesole stadium and other smaller facilities inside some of the sport center’s buildings.
MEDIA CENTER
The Media Center consists of a futuristic press briefing room, equipped with a conference table that opens to make room for a stage area for conferences.
This room also functions as a digital museum. Several monitors show images that recount the history of Fiorentina. The images are displayed on 88m2 of Ledwall Samsung screens with a pixel pitch of 2.5mm which, thanks to control systems furnished by the company Media&Tech, allow fluid images to be shown at extremely high resolution.
The audio system was designed by Professional Show in collaboration with the K-Array company. It consists of 4 KK102l Kobra speakers to the sides of the room, 4 KU210 Rumble subwoofers under the stage and, set into the steps of the stage, other linear KAN200PLUS8 Anaconda speakers measuring 2m in length.
The lighting system was designed by Professional Show with the support of ProLights and comprises 16 motor-driven lights (8 spotlights and 8 wash lights managed by an Avolites light mixer) and 20 additional remotely managed LEDs Spotlights that direct light onto the stage.
The Media Center is where you will find the PTZ professional 4K, 50p AW-UE150 cameras and two lateral wall-boxes where visiting TV and radio operators can connect and acquire the various signals produced here.
The sound recording studio has been set up using various types of wired and wireless Sennheiser products.
The control system is made up of the following apparatus and systems:
- TF1 Yamaha Audio Mixer
- RTS Intercom
- V-Mix HD Video Mixer
- Adder KVM
- Barco PC ClickShare presentation sharing system
- Avolites Light Mixer
- Various HD/4K monitors to complete the control system for the speakers’ table
The final touch to complete the Media Center will be a translator’s booth for use during international events. The translation will be broadcast by WIFI to users’ mobile phones. The Media Center control room is totally integrated with that of the TV production studio.
TV STUDIO
The new multimedia TV studio is an innovative production, creativity and content development area. It is the technological heart of the sport center. The new concept guarantees dynamic distribution to all broadcast and social platforms thanks to the fully digital NDI, SDI and Dante technologies.
The filming technology is based on Panasonic PTX 4K products. Integrated LED wall, monitors and virtual sets open the recording studio to all manner of production project. The virtual part is handled by a Zero Density system.
The set design of the studio, created by Professional Show under the artistic direction of set designer Patrizia Bocconi, has two different environments. On one side there is a 15 m-long area for the Virtual Set and on the other there is the studio proper which can support 3 or 4 scenes for various transmissions.
In more detail, the walls of the studio have been built with sound absorbing materials and the floor is made of black-lacquered MDF wood inlaid with over 80m of RGBW strip LED. Moreover 60m of RGBW strip LEDs have been installed along the perimeters of the set.
Lastly, there is a Control Room with various workstations holding the following devices:
- Newtek Tricaster video mixer
- Newtek 3Play replay manager
- Yamaha TF5 Audio Mixer
- 3 RTS Intercom stations
- Adder KVM
- Samsung, Lilliput and Craltech control monitors
- Zero Density virtual reality system
- Panasonic camera controllers
.
The Illumination system is a Prolights product (48 illumination bodies installed) and is managed by a LightShark LS-Core station.
All microphones have been supplied by Sennheiser. In addition, there is a column covered by Samsung LEDs and a 15m2 Samsung screen with a pixel pitch of 2.5mm. There is also another studio set consisting of 5 55” Samsung monitors to be used for face-face interviews.
"CURVA FIESOLE" MINI STADIUM
Professional Show provided the design and installation of audio facilities for the Curva Fiesole mini stadium in collaboration with K-Array. Each of the two stand areas are equipped with 7 GS18 subwoofers and 21 GH12 speakers, for a total of 14 subwoofers and 42 speakers. This equipment was provided by K-Gear under the K-Array brand.
It is worth noting that these sets are placed along the underside of the roof rather than using the standard vertical or “curved array” configuration. This creates a harmony between the acoustic technology and the architecture of the stadium.
EVENTS PAVILION
Here too, the audio equipment used was by K-Array and consists of 8 KP102l Python speakers and 2 main KS3PI Thunder subwoofers set into the woodwork in the hall interior. There are also 8 KU212 Rumble subwoofers hidden in the interstices of the walls that preserve the standard of beauty that the architectural design calls for without sacrificing the extremely high standard of sound quality that K-Array products provide.
MAGLIA VIOLA AND GIGLIO BARS
Finally, two sound systems have been installed in the bars of the Curva Fiesole stadium using, once again, technical support and equipment supplied by K-Array.
In particular the two bars, called Maglia Viola and Giglio, have each been equipped with 4 KV102RII Viper speakers and 8 KU26 Rumble subwoofers for a total of 8 speakers and 16 subwoofers.
These audio systems are managed by QSC Audio control systems that enable operators in the bars to adjust volume levels and sources to broadcast to the guests of the bar.
