Project Overview
Stoke City football club are the oldest professional football league club, founded in 1863; hosting football legends such as Sir Stanley Matthews and Gordon Banks to just name a few. Since the clubs establishment their fans have always been at the heart of the club. In 2022, Stoke City began a complete revision of the existing Delilah’s bar, to create the ultimate fan experience. The club approached us at Connect Anything to deliver the Audio-visual requirements for Ricardos Sports bar; a project we happily accepted.
Project Highlights
130” 1.8mm Pixel LED Display
28 Samsung Commercial Display’s
Multi Zone Audio Deployment
Custom User Control Interface
Stage Lighting
Customer requirements:
Stoke City FC approached us with the ambition to create a new sports bar in what was the old Delilah Bar. The old bar had become dated, and the club wanted to do a complete refresh both aesthetically and technologically. The bar was to be located across two levels with the ground floor bar being the focal point with the bulk of the displays and a 130” LED display. The vision was to have a central bar with suspended sections that will accommodate the displays so no matter where you are standing then you always have visibility of a display.
As this was the first time the club had created a space like this, they were unsure of the technology that could be deployed to give the desired outcome for the project. Based on this Connect Anything were given design authority over the project. Our experience in many corporate and commercial environments meant that we had the knowledge and supply chain to confidently deliver on the vision that the club had.
Concept Image
Delivered Project
Solutions
At the core of everything, the operation of the system needed to be simple. This is one of the core challenges when trying to bring a mix of technology and make it effortless to operate.
We decided to use Crestron as our control system, as they are renowned across the audio visual industry for its flexibility and integration into 3rd party systems.
As the main function of the bar was to display sports then the video distribution was critical feature. We opted for a video over IP solution using Wyrestorm. A mixture of 10 video encoders and 29 decoders were used to give a flexible video matrix for the staff to operate. The user facing displays connected to the Wyrestorm system was made up of a number of Samsung 55” and 65” displays. Stoke wanted a focal display in the bar and it was decided to install a 130” 1.8mm InfiLED display on the stage area.
To meet the audio requirement of the spaces we decided to use Biamp for the processing to handle the mix of DANTE and analogue audio channels that were coming into the system. The output quality of the speakers was very important, SONANCE was our choice of speakers based on both the quality and the ability to meet the aesthetic requirement for the bar.
In order to efficiently control the audio and content being displayed across the bar; a customised user interface was also created using Crestron, tailored to the clients requirements. This user interface was operated through an iPad and user training was carried out by Connect Anything to ensure staff were fully comfortable using the system in their daily operations.
Customer benefits
The customer was very happy with the end result. The bar was unveiled as the new Ricardo’s bar and has been used for a wide variety of events as well as match days. Our ability to pull together a mix of complex technologies into one single user interface has been a game changer for them.
We are excited to continue to witness the usage of the space over the coming years, and the pillar it becomes within Stokes community
For information about how we can help you contact us today!
