Behind the scenes at the new home of ACF Fiorentina at the eco-sustainable Viola Park

Eco-sustainable sports centre, Viola Park is the new home of Italian professional football club, ACF Fiorentina

Cutting edge, eco-sustainable sports hub, Viola Park was inaugurated on 11 October 2023 as the new home of Italian professional football club, ACF Fiorentina, which is based in Florence, Tuscany. Nestled amidst the green hills surrounding Florence, Viola Park exemplifies entrepreneurial spirit in service to sports, aiming to foster aspiring young football players.

Viola Park in figures

The new sports centre for ACF Fiorentina is the largest in Italy and among the largest in Europe. Alongside various training areas, it houses all necessary support facilities. Here are some noteworthy features:

– 12 buildings with dormitories, boasting 75 rooms and 116 bed

– Medical centre, wellness centre, 25-meter pool, two plunge pools, cryotherapy facility, sauna, and Turkish bath

– ACF Fiorentina involves 20 teams

– 12 regulation fields: five grass, five hybrid, two mini-fields for children, and one for goalkeepers

– The complex hosts two stadiums with a capacity of 4,500 spectators; named Curva Fiesole with 3,000 seats and Davide Astori with 1,500 seats

– There are also four facilities for athletic training, comprising over 130 workout stations and an 80 square metre large rehabilitation area

– Viola Park selected Professional Show, a renowned Italian systems integrator, as the technological partner for most audio, video, and lighting systems

– Major installations were designed and implemented for the media centre, TV studio, Curva Fiesole stadium, and smaller structures within the sports centre

Giovanni Beoni, sales manager at systems integrator for the Viola Park complex, Professional Show

Inside the media centre

The media centre features a futuristic press conference room with a conference table that opens to reveal a stage area for conferences. This room also serves as a digital museum, displaying images narrating the history of Fiorentina.

Giovanni Beoni, sales manager at systems integrator for the complex, Professional Show, notes: “The technology implemented here allows projection on Samsung 88 metre square LED wall screens with a pixel pitch of 2.5mm, delivering smooth, high resolution videos.”

Other notable technologies include Yamaha for audio mixers, RTS for intercoms, HD V-Mix for video mixers, KVM Adder, Barco PC ClickShare presentation sharing system, Avolites lighting mixer, and various HD 4K monitors to complete the speaker table control system.

“In the media centre,” continues Beoni, “we installed professional 4K PTZ cameras, 50p AW-UE150, and two side wall-boxes where TV and radio operators hosting sports programmes can connect and acquire various signals.”

Close up on the TV studio

“The second area of particular interest for the audiovisual and broadcast landscape,” says Beoni, “is the new multimedia TV studio. It is a technologically advanced structure designed to support the production, creativity, and development of content based on immersive visual experience, offering significant advantages for TV operators.”

A TV studio ready to go at Viola Park

This studio includes cutting edge Panasonic PTX 4K-based recording technologies. An integrated LED wall, monitors, and virtual sets open the production studio to all sports projects. It was specifically designed to ensure dynamic content production and distribution on all broadcasting and social platforms, thanks to completely digital NDI, SDI, and Dante technologies.

“The optimised and visually appealing set design,” adds Beoni, “was created by us at Professional Show under the artistic direction of set designer Patrizia Bocconi, featuring two different areas. One side has 15 meters for the virtual set, while the other side houses the actual studio that can support three or four set-scenes for various broadcasts.”

Attention to the studio’s aesthetic dimension includes walls constructed with sound-absorbing materials. The black lacquered MDF floor features inlays based on over 80 meters of RGBW LED strips. Additionally, 60 meters of RGBW LED strips along the set’s perimeters deliver impactful visuals to Fiorentina’s broadcasts. The lighting system is a Prolights product (48 installed illuminating bodies) and is managed by a LightShark LS-Core station.

The video control room, or adjacent control room, features various stations hosting technologies and apparatus such as video mixers, replay manager, audio mixers, intercom stations, KVM, control monitors, virtual reality system, camera controllers, respectively from Newtek, Yamaha, RTS, Adder, Samsung, Craltech, Zero Density, Panasonic.

Finally, the 3Play Replay Manager offers the ability to play back and analyse key actions, allowing for the creation of captivating replays during sports events or live broadcasts.