Willie Mays. Juan Marcial. Barry Bonds. The San Francisco Giants have had some of the brightest and best to step on a major league baseball field.
Oracle Park, home of the Giants, has continuously aimed to have the technology to match.
The Giants played their first game at Oracle Park on April 11, 2000, in a victory over the San Diego Padres. After a decade of playing in the venue, they celebrated the dawn of the 2010s with three World Series titles in five years (2010, 2012, and 2014).
Welcome to 2024, where bigger is better. Bigger hot dogs, bigger home runs, and certainly bigger, louder, and more immersive sound. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ballpark, Giants Enterprises turned to Diversified to amp up the fan experience.
Opening Day Jitters
The Giants organization had a huge advantage in quickly installing a new sound system, having partnered with Diversified on many projects since Oracle Park opened its doors. When it was time for the new sound system, they knew exactly where to look.
“[Diversified] brought meticulous attention to detail from the onset of this project,” said Bill Schlough, chief information officer, San Francisco Giants. “When it came to providing manufacturer options, exploring system design improvements, and communication throughout the bidding process, Diversified was unbeatable. Our confidence in the Diversified team during the design and planning process only grew as we proceeded with the implementation, as they stayed on top of every detail, ultimately delivering a transformational audio experience to our fans at Oracle Park—ahead of schedule and under budget.”
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Ahead of schedule was the key. Oracle Park isn't simply the home of the Giants, but other events—from concerts to the San Francisco Giant Race—take place there as well. Simply put, it wasn't just MLB Opening Day in April Diversified had to be ready for, but several events in early 2024 that could wreak havoc on an install in such a large venue. Diversified stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park, finishing the project three months ahead of schedule.
“Our on-site crews were incentivized to finish the biggest sections before full stadium events scheduled for early in 2024,” explained Jeff Dykhouse, solutions architect, large venue sound at Diversified. “If we could finish before those events, we wouldn’t need to tear down the scaffolding for the event weekends and then put it back up again. So, the teams put in the extra planning and effort to make this happen.”
Everything seemingly fell right into place—but while it may have seemed relatively simple, it didn't come without adversity. Though Dykhouse pointed out the longstanding relationship with Oracle Park made the two a dream team, he also reminded that any project would have its challenges.
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"In this case,” he explained, “one [challenge] was the many events planned throughout the year that required a functioning sound system. To support weekend events, we created a few one-off setups composed of replaced sections blended with existing sections. Another challenge was access. Many speakers were not reachable by boom lifts, so we deployed significant scaffolding, which had to move around the bowl with the demolition and installation teams.”
Batter Up
The original distributed sound system was ahead of the game in 2000; however, its focus was on intelligibility and spoken word. Both are still important 25 years later, but new systems simply need to do more. The Giants wanted a more "theatrical experience" for its fans, which means not only a highly intelligible sound system, but one that delivers high-fidelity music for a more immersive experience.
Thus, the new system provided a much wider frequency range and "dynamic headroom for modern music and game production audio,” Dykhouse explained. “This was accomplished by using high-performance, long-throw speakers, eliminating most 70-volt speakers and adding 21-inch subwoofers around the bowl."
“When it came to providing manufacturer options, exploring system design improvements, and communication throughout the bidding process, Diversified was unbeatable.”
Bill Schlough, San Francisco Giants
Although the loudspeakers from the original sound system impressively still worked, they were near end of life. But that original successful installation gave Diversified ideas and opportunities. "The previous installation did a nice job covering most of the seating areas," said Dykhouse. “In addition to upping overall system performance, we took advantage of the opportunity to rethink areas that previously experienced reduced intelligibility or had weak output. We also brought up the outfield experience to match the main bowl.”
The upgrade focused on the acoustic experience throughout Oracle Park and included all public area sound systems as well as the Gotham Club, executive meeting rooms, and other private spaces. Dykhouse and his team turned to the Yamaha CL5 for its audio console as well as Shure Axient microphones. A QSC Q-SYS Core 5200 provides the digital signal processing, while Powersoft Quattrocanali 8804 and 4804 DSP+D and various QSC CX-Q models amplify the sound throughout Oracle Park. During an event or a game, the production team triggers presets in Q-SYS—which include batting practice, pre-game show, the National Anthem, and others—to configure each zone and subsystem.
There was a bevy of Fulcrum loudspeakers and subwoofers were used around the different stadium zones, while JBL CBT Series column speakers were used on concourses and compact Fulcrum Acoustic RX Series speakers were placed at the entrances. "Oracle Park has three types of concourses,” Dykhouse explained. “Open to the bowl, enclosed behind glass, and open but so far away that bowl sound doesn’t reach them. Each of those zones required a different approach. Dynamics processing in Q-SYS creates these zone-specific mixes automatically from console feeds."
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It's clear the Giants are committed to providing a technologically enhanced game-day experience to its fans, one that continues to reinvent itself through its partnership with Diversified. And thus far, the results seem to be paying off.
"In a recent survey of fans, 87% of respondents were 'Highly Satisfied' or 'Somewhat Satisfied' regarding the sound quality and volume throughout the game,” reported Alex Gannon, AV engineer, San Francisco Giants. “While it’s impossible to please everyone, fans and staff alike have been extremely impressed with the improved dynamic range and clarity that we are now able to deliver throughout the ballpark.”
