Thorn Lighting has delivered a comprehensive new lighting system for a multipurpose sports arena in the Italian city of Trento. The new Altis Sport LED floodlights provide the perfect conditions for a range of matches and sporting events, helping the Aquila Basket Trento basketball team and Trentino Volley volleyball club enjoy both home advantage and the best possible lighting when they entertain visitors to the PalaTrento arena.

The local authorities in Trento have marked the start of the new basketball and volleyball seasons by officially opening the renovated PalaTrento municipal arena, the true home of sport in the north Italian city. A series of major works have recently been carried out at the venue, which can accommodate 4360 spectators and will soon be expanded to offer seating for 5000 sports fans. This extensive renovation project has included refurbishment of the flooring, renewal of the seating area and a completely new lighting system.

With a clear desire to mirror the high-calibre nature of the sporting performances and guarantee the public an unforgettable visitor experience, plans for the renewal of the lighting focused on designing a modern system that would minimise energy consumption and maximise lighting quality. Thorn was committed to giving the PalaTrento arena the lighting it deserves, combining norm compliance andoutstanding efficiency with first-class lighting quality for both competitive matches and regulartraining.

The thorough product selection process finally settled on the Thorn Altis Sport, a high-power LED floodlight for sports lighting applications. Altis Sport provides exceptional flicker-free lighting, which is suitable for HDTV broadcasting, and features a flexible optical system that crafts an optimised lighting distribution, offering players the perfect environment in which to show their sporting excellence. A total of 92 symmetrical and asymmetrical floodlights can achieve lighting levels of up  to 3400 lux, while a DMX system enables full individual control of dimming and directional positioning. As a result, visitors to the PalaTrento can now also experience the type of spectacular team presentations normally seen before National Basketball Association (NBA) games in America.

The new lighting system comfortably outperforms the large number of conventional discharge lamps
that formed the mainstay of the old installation. Indeed, different luminaire sizes and varying Lighting intensities meant that the arena was previously unable to guarantee the achievement of the regulatory standards required for high-level international competitions.

The extensive experience of Thorn with sporting applications was greatly appreciated by all parties involved in the project. The impressive new lighting system is the result of excellent collaboration between Thorn and team members such as Teknoengineering, a long-term partner of the Zumtobel.