San Antonio Alamodome

Context

The Team

For State Farm Stadium, It’s All About the Fan Experience  

Few venues in North America demand as much of their infrastructure as the Alamodome, San Antonio’s municipally owned “super-flexible” venue. Seating up to 72,000 fans, the building shifts fluidly between football, basketball, and the regional graduation ceremonies that local schools rely on each summer. While it served as the decade-long home of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, basketball remains central to its programming, serving as the anchor for the UIL State Basketball Finals. The venue’s versatility extends to the ice, where two permanent Olympic-size rinks accommodate NHL matches, figure skating, and speed skating, making the Alamodome one of the country’s most operationally diverse large-scale venues. 

The Challenge

Accommodating both basketball and football within the same footprint is a significant logistical feat, particularly when seating must be reconfigured for each specific use. This versatility requires audio coverage that is equally adaptable. While the venue had relied on an L-Acoustics K2 main PA since 2017, that system was designed for a full stadium footprint and lacked the reach to effectively address a basketball court positioned at the center of the dome. Ryan Knox, Senior Consultant at Salas O’Brien, highlighted the need to map every building use case before defining a system architecture. Complexity peaked during major NCAA events, where extended seating stands and massive LED walls created “acoustic shadows” that obstructed sound from reaching the upper levels and corners. 

The Solution

Salas O’Brien specified a dual-system approach, adding a new L-Acoustics K2 and A15i Wide center cluster to the venue’s existing inventory. Installed by LD Systems, this hardware serves as a dedicated audio solution for the arena-style basketball games and smaller court-based events that now dominate the building’s agenda. The choice of K2 and A Series ensured total sonic consistency across the venue while simplifying the integration. Because the new arrays share the same network, software, and amplified controllers as the original 2017 PA, the venue can reconfigure the systems independently or in tandem with ease.

The deployment consists of 56 K2 and 28 A15i Wide enclosures, powered by 31 LA12X and 12 LA4X amplified controllers. This setup allows for remarkable versatility; for example, some K2 arrays can be relocated to the stadium corners during full-field events to guarantee uniform coverage. L-Acoustics Soundvision software was instrumental in this design, as it allowed the team to plot precisely how to reach floor seating and navigate around massive LED walls that would otherwise block the audio.

The Result

Since commissioning the new system, the Alamodome has expanded its operational capabilities and reached new audiences. The building is now a viable option for tennis, volleyball championships, and other court-sized events that promoters previously viewed as too large or unaffordable. By owning the system rather than relying on outside vendors for unconventional setups, the venue has gained significant economic independence. A prime example is the annual graduation season; for a decade, the venue rented a PA for a month every summer to serve roughly 50 schools. With the permanent L-Acoustics installation, that recurring expense is gone, allowing the team to deploy world-class audio for every event on their own terms.  

Project photos