A crucial, yet often overlooked, element of a first-class sports venue is its lighting system.
A great lighting system does more than just illuminate the field of play. Among other things, it also makes stadium visitors generally comfortable in their surroundings and ensures a successful television broadcast for spectators watching at home.
But beyond those simple imperatives, sports lighting is a complex business. International, national, regional, and local competitions all have their different lighting requirements; practice sessions and recreational sports call for different lighting regimes than competitive and professional events do. A sporting facility’s capacity and the distances from which spectators are viewing the action also come into play in lighting. This variety of interests explains why the CEN Standards are organized into different so-called classes, classes that happen to be consistent with TV broadcasting standards.