Port Melbourne Football Club

Lighting the future of local elite football

Client: Port Melbourne Football Club (via Turner & Townsend)

Location: Port Melbourne, VIC / Wurundjeri Country

Lucid was engaged by Turner & Townsend on behalf of the Port Melbourne Football Club to deliver a major lighting and infrastructure upgrade for North Port Oval. The aim: transform the local ground into a professional-grade venue ready for AFL pre-season, AFLW, and VFL/VFLW night games.

The challenge

To meet AFLW broadcast lighting standards, the club needed to significantly upgrade its lighting capability while working within existing site constraints. Achieving the right lux levels and uniformity for professional broadcast coverage — without triggering costly electrical infrastructure upgrades — was a key technical and financial challenge.

The project also needed to accommodate multiple lighting vendors early in the process, ensuring a competitive and compliant design pathway.

Our Approach

Lucid led the end-to-end engineering design process:

Developed tender documentation and coordinated a vendor-neutral design brief to meet AFLW lighting specifications
Managed a shortlisting process to evaluate vendor lighting designs against performance, cost, and infrastructure impact
Designed new electrical and structural systems to support the selected light fixtures, including new head frames and pole structures
Specified a DALI-based lighting control system to enable individual fixture control, dimming, and preset match modes
Developed a load-shedding strategy to avoid substation upgrades, integrating temporary generation for peak demand periods

Solutions delivered

AFLW-compliant sports lighting system
DALI control system enabling dynamic and granular lighting control
Structural and electrical design for new light towers and headframes
Power management plan to reduce infrastructure upgrade costs
Delivered documentation for tender, vendor coordination, and construction

Case Study - Port Melbourne Football Club

Outcomes

North Port Oval now supports professional night games across multiple leagues
Enhanced community access and club infrastructure
Avoided costly grid upgrades through smart load balancing and temporary generation
Delivered to program ahead of the 2023 football season

Better World Impact

Local clubs are where elite sport begins — and thrives. This project brings national-standard infrastructure into the heart of a community ground, expanding opportunities for women’s sport, player development, and night-time access for all. By designing with flexibility, efficiency, and cost-awareness, Lucid helped create a future-ready facility for the next generation of athletes.

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