Arena floodlighting, indoor school, gym and pool lighting across the UAE, designed, supplied and installed by AL SHOLA ALMODEA.
Sports lighting in the UAE
Almost every sports enquiry starts with a lux figure, and almost every disappointing scheme met the figure it was asked for. An average says nothing about whether the light landed evenly, and evenness is what players and animals respond to.
The useful measure is uniformity: the ratio between the darkest point on the surface and the average across it. Bright bands and dark patches are where a ball disappears or a take-off is misjudged. Uniformity comes from how many positions you light from and how they overlap, not from how powerful each one is.
The second measure is glare, judged from two eye heights. A spectator looks down at the surface; a participant looks along it, moving fast and often upward to follow a ball. A luminaire aimed for the first can sit in the sightline of the second, so aiming is done from the field, not the seating.
Then switching. Training does not need competition levels, and running a full scheme for a Tuesday evening session is the commonest avoidable cost in sports lighting. Splitting the installation into training, club and competition scenes at design stage costs almost nothing.
Indoors the constraints change but do not ease. Roof heights are lower, structures reflective, and fittings sit in the eyeline of anyone on a bench. Mount between structure rather than below it, and use matt dark soffits: they do more for glare than any optic.
Water changes it again. The air in a pool hall is warm, humid and carries chlorine, and that reaches a fitting through its seals and its driver compartment long before it touches the lens. Anything above open water is reached with a pole from the deck or after a drain-down, so fewer fittings over the water and more around it is usually the better trade. Wellness rooms in the same building want the reverse of a training floor: lower levels, warmer colour, and no bright source in the field of view from a lounger.
Then the climate. Sand gets into optics through gaskets that pass a rain test, heat shortens rated life, and reaching a mast in a finished landscape is an expensive visit. Lowering gear specified at the outset decides whether a scheme still performs in five years.
We work across all seven emirates from a showroom in Industrial Area 7, Sharjah, with sports and club work in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The work
Mast floodlighting for an outdoor competition arena, and high-level linear between the trusses of the indoor school.
A red geometric screen on the facade and continuous linear runs across a dark training floor, bought as one commission.
A ceiling drawn as angular figures over the training floors, and a pool and wellness side working to a different set of rules.
Sports lighting
Uniformity targets, aiming and switching all follow from what is played on the surface and at what level, so that is the first question rather than the last. Design, supply and installation across all seven emirates, with a 5-year warranty on the fittings we supply. Call +971 6 572 3204 or message us on WhatsApp.