The Prudential Center sports and entertainment venue in downtown Newark, NJ has replaced its aging communications infrastructure with a new signal routing and intercom backbone based on technologies from Riedel Communications, including MediorNet real-time signal transport, processing, and routing technology integrated with an Artist digital matrix intercom mainframe and Bolero wireless intercom to enable communications throughout the facility.
Opened in 2007, Prudential Center has been the home arena for the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, the Seton Hall University Pirates men’s basketball team, and more than 175 concerts, family shows, and special events each year. Known by fans as “The Rock,” the arena seats 16,500 for hockey games and almost 19,000 for basketball. The Riedel upgrade replaces an intercom system that was original to Prudential Center and a router that had reached its end of life.
“When the time came to upgrade our routing and comms systems, we explored several vendors in both categories. Ultimately, Riedel was the perfect choice for our budget, the requirements of our facility, and the technical capabilities of MediorNet, Artist, and Bolero,” says Joe Kuchie, senior manager, Scoreboard and Live Production, Prudential Center. “In particular, we have been blown away by the outstanding voice quality and range of the Bolero system when compared to tests we ran on other solutions. Other advantages are the integrated features of MediorNet and the flexibility to grow the system just by adding more nodes where needed, rather than having to buy a completely new router.”
Connecting Prudential Center’s control room to the arena floor, the new Artist- and Bolero-based intercom system enables communications for all in-arena productions. The MediorNet network routes all video content and feeds from the control room to the scoreboard and monitors throughout the building, and also transports feeds to replay operators for all sporting events.
One notable capability of the new intercom system is its point-to-point ability, allowing individual crew members to speak directly with one another rather than having to share a crowded main channel during a game. With each Bolero beltpack acting as a wireless key panel integrated with Artist, users are able to place point-to-point calls whenever and wherever needed.
“With Bolero’s fantastic range, our game-day workflows have improved significantly. Now we are able to talk to our floor managers and camera operators wherever they are, instead of waiting for them to return within range,” Kuchie concludes. “With our newfound communication range, we have new opportunities for filming in-game features from various locations in our building, capturing live footage from angles that we previously couldn’t use, and generating unique, fan-engaging content that translates into new revenue potential.”
