Case Study: Sydney Acer Arena achieves early, reliable smoke detection and safer evacuations with Xtralis VESDA

Sydney Acer Arena - Customer Case Study

Sydney’s Acer Arena (formerly the Sydney SuperDome) is a 21,000-seat, multi‑use indoor venue with a 39 m high arena bowl, multiple event spaces and strict eight‑minute evacuation requirements. Its enormous floor area and volume meant prescriptive solutions (like roof‑level sprinklers) would be ineffective or hazardous, and traditional point smoke detectors struggled with smoke dilution and stratification — so a performance‑based fire engineering approach was required.

Holmes Fire and Safety (Dr Marianne Foley) designed a performance‑based solution using VESDA aspirating smoke detection: a ceiling pipe network that actively samples air to centrally located laser detectors, with programmable alarm thresholds, filtration and software learning to reduce false alarms. The system provides ultra‑early, reliable detection across the venue’s large volume, interfaces with existing systems, supports safe evacuation within the required time and meets the Building Code’s performance objectives.

Sydney Acer Arena