The San Francisco 49ers’ new Levi’s Stadium, in Santa Clara, Calif., has been designed with this in mind. It’s small, and fits snugly into its dense urban location. One of the long sides of the oval has been truncated, with the media booths placed in a tower that reduces the footprint of the stadium and will help reflect sound back towards the fans when it opens later this year.
Using materials like wood and metal increases reverberations and can also boost crowd noise.
While most North American stadiums are open to the sky, having a roof can help amp up the noise in the stands. European soccer stadiums all have partial roofs, which helps keep noise levels up. At the Seattle Seahawks’ CenturyLink Stadium the large overhanging roof reflects noise down towards the stands, and has helped the fans there – collectively and officially known as the 12th man – set the Guinness World Record for crowd noise, at an astounding 137.6 dBA, a decibel scale that accounts for how sensitive the human hearing system is to different sound frequencies.
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