Managing an indoor athletic lighting facility installation is a complicated endeavor, and should only be trusted to an experienced company. Perhaps more than any other building, sports complexes require high quality illumination. Not only do the fixtures need to be intense enough to flood the room with enough output, they have to render color extremely well, last a long time, minimize glare, and be easy to control. If all of these needs are not met, it can result in an overly expensive and finicky system that will need to be replaced before long. Fortunately, recent advancements in fixture technology have made large scale projects much more affordable to place and operate.

What are some important considerations during an indoor athletic lighting facility installation?

Output will dominate the project planning process because if there isn’t enough illumination to see by, what’s the point? This is where photometric technology can be a huge help. Using photometric simulation programs, a commercial fixture company can determine precisely how the fixtures will behave in a certain space and their relevant statistics. For example, the company’s technicians will have a clear idea of the system efficiency, flux, and reflective properties of the space. This will allow for proper fixture placement and metering. The goal is to maximize output in terms of lumens per square foot, and to spread this illumination out evenly so there are no hotspots or dark areas.

Efficiency is also essential to a practical system, and newer fixtures allow for excellent efficiency even with high output systems. In some cases, removing outdated metal halide fixtures and replacing them with quality fluorescent or LED fixtures can reduce energy costs by almost half, and new fixtures typically provide much more illumination as well. This is possible because newer fixtures convert power to illumination at a much higher rate, and because improved reflectors direct more of the illumination throughout the space.

And new technologies like LED last significantly longer than metal halides and incandescent fixtures. Building owners often fail to take replacement costs into account when setting up a project, focusing only on the initial placement cost. This usually does not pay off over the long run, because LED and modern fluorescents often provide several thousand more hours of performance compared to metal halides and incandescent fixtures. And new technologies hold onto their output levels and color as they age, something that older fixtures have a problem with.

Glare is a unique issue to an indoor athletic lighting facility installation, but it must be managed properly to maintain a safe playing area. If there is too much glare, it can overwhelm people in the room and create blind spots. Glare can normally be controlled well with indirect fixtures, improved reflectors, or glare shields that soften the illumination and spread it out. 

The last thing players want to think about while competing is lighting. With the right fixtures, though, they won’t have to.