Multi-purpose hall lighting: reconciling sport and events

The village hall hosts a basketball tournament on Saturday afternoon and a dinner for a hundred guests in the evening. In between, the caretaker has a control panel, an hour to change over and no instructions.

Looking for a single setting that would suit both uses always leads to the same result: a level too low for sport and too harsh for the banquet. The solution is to prepare separate scenes and make them available with a single action.

Listing the actual uses of the hall before sizing

The list is drawn up from the booking schedule of the past year, not from the original intention for the building. A hall declared as a sports hall that hosts thirty association dinners a year is not a sports hall.

For each use, three pieces of information are enough: annual frequency, average duration of occupation and the level of visual demand. An approved tournament and a school training session do not ask the same of the installation.

This list produces the scenes to be programmed. Beyond five or six, the system becomes unusable for an occasional user.

The sport scene: uniformity and a high level

The sport scene is the one that sizes the installation. The EN 12193 standard sets, for a multi-sports hall, a maintained average illuminance of 200 lux in class III, which covers training and school sport, and 300 lux in class II for regional competition.

The EN 12464-1 standard sets, for sports halls and gymnasiums, 300 lux with UGR limited to 22 and an Ra of at least 80. Uniformity U0 counts as much as the level: an uneven spread of light makes players lose the trajectory of the ball even at a correct average level.

This scene therefore determines installed power and layout. All the other scenes are obtained by dimming down from this one, never the other way round. A photometric simulation of the hall makes it possible to set the layout on this reference scene before ordering.

The show and banquet scene: atmosphere and dimming

Dinners, bingo nights and shows call for a much lower light and a different distribution. The order of magnitude commonly used for table service is around 200 lux, with a wide tolerance depending on the atmosphere sought.

Three points need to be dealt with during programming. The stage or platform must be able to remain lit while the hall is dimmed. Circulation routes and exits must remain legible. The low level chosen must remain compatible with service and with clearing the tables at the end of the evening.

One technical point determines the result: the minimum dimming level the driver actually accepts. A device that does not go low enough forces a whole row to be switched off, which breaks uniformity and makes the atmosphere uneven.

| Scene | Target level | Main point of attention |

| --- | --- | --- |

| Sport, regional competition | 300 lux under EN 12193 class II | Uniformity and glare |

| Sport, training and school | 200 lux under EN 12193 class III | Division into half-halls |

| Banquet and bingo | Order of magnitude of 200 lux | Minimum dimming of the driver |

| Show | Low level, stage treated separately | Hall dimmed, platform maintained |

| Cleaning and setting back | Sport or intermediate level | Direct access without a code |

| Standby and closing | Circulation routes only | Timed general switch-off |

The cleaning scene and the standby scene

The cleaning scene is the most often forgotten in programming. The cleaning staff often work early in the morning or late in the evening and need a high level over the whole area, including under the stands and in the side areas.

Without a dedicated button, they will use the sport scene and sometimes leave it on. A clearly identified button, with timed automatic switch-off, solves the problem and avoids unnecessary operating hours.

The standby scene covers closing. It keeps the circulation routes lit and switches off the rest, relying on a time delay rather than on the vigilance of the last occupant. It is the scene that produces the most visible savings over a year.

Choosing dimmable luminaires that are compatible with each other

Dimming is mainly controlled by DALI protocol or by a 1-10 V signal. DALI addresses each luminaire individually and makes it possible to reconfigure zones without rewiring, which suits halls that are frequently rearranged. 1-10 V, simpler and cheaper, requires the zones to be fixed at the wiring stage.

Three checks are needed before ordering:

• The dimming range actually stated by the driver manufacturer, not that of the protocol.
• The dimming curve, preferably logarithmic, so that the perceived variation is even.
• Consistency of shade between families of luminaires, otherwise two different whites appear at low level.

Mixing brands and generations remains the leading cause of erratic behaviour. In a high hall, dimmable high bay luminaires and circulation luminaires must share the same protocol to be controlled from the same panel.

Simple wall control for non-technical users

The interface decides the actual use of the system. A touch screen installed in a locked plant room amounts to having no scenes at all.

The set-up that works comes down to three elements. A wall keypad with physical buttons, placed near the main entrance, with one button per scene. Engraved labels in everyday terms, such as basketball, dinner, cleaning, off. A locked box, reserved for the person in charge, for fine adjustments and reprogramming.

A laminated one-page guide, displayed next to the keypad, usefully completes the arrangement. Controls, detectors and emergency units are chosen together with the luminaires in order to guarantee protocol compatibility.

Emergency lighting in a building open to the public

A municipal multi-purpose hall is a building open to the public and often combines several types of activity. Emergency lighting there performs two separate functions: evacuation, which signals exits and changes of direction, and anti-panic lighting, which maintains general visibility in the occupied volumes.

The French safety regulations require a minimum luminous flux of 5 lumens per square metre for anti-panic lighting and an autonomy of one hour. The EN 1838 standard sets a minimum illuminance of 1 lux on the centre line of escape routes.

Two constraints specific to this type of hall are added. The configuration changes with the use, and the exits to be signalled are not the same in sports configuration and in banquet configuration with tables. Periodic tests must be recorded in the safety register: switching to emergency mode every month, checking autonomy every six months.

Before finalising the works programme, a meeting with a specialist in lighting solutions for local authorities makes it possible to validate the division into zones and the number of scenes to be programmed.

Luminaires suited to multi-purpose and sports halls are grouped in the sports halls category.