Sound issues in Mayflower Grandstand

As we head into Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship match against Sunderland, we felt it was the right time to address the current sound issues with the PA system in the Beacon Electrical Mayflower Grandstand.  

For context, in 2020, when the Grandstand was redeveloped, a decision was made not to install new entertainment speakers.  

The route selected was to utilise the emergency PAVA speakers instead, which isn’t unusual but did present some issues given that we already had an entertainment set up in the rest of the stadium. The audio signals are different which has provided challenges in syncing them throughout the ground. 

In 2023, following supporter feedback we carried out extensive upgrades to the horseshoe PA system which has been operating to a good standard for some time now. 

However, despite repeated attempts to align the two systems, with temporary fixes working intermittently, the quality this season has regressed considerably in the Mayflower Grandstand and that is simply not good enough.  

It is worth noting that the Emergency PA system works in isolation so there is no risk to supporter safety. 

The club has always been transparent about investing in the right projects at the right time, and although in the short term this will mean the quality is poor, we are going to fix this immediately. 

We are currently in discussions with our supplier on how quickly we find a solution but there are several considerations that we need to work through first.  

We are sorry for the issues this season and recognise it is not up to the standards we set. As the Green Army know, we pride ourselves on our match day experience and want to get this rectified as soon as possible. We will provide an update when we know timelines of the next steps. 

We thank you for your patience and understanding in the meantime.