The postponement of concerts at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium shook the musical and social panorama of Madrid last week. While the residents of the Chamartín neighborhood celebrated their momentary victory amidst criticism that accused them of taking advantage of their wealth to file a lawsuit, artists such as Aitana or Lola Índigo announced the new dates of their concerts, until 2025. However, both residents have been affected. as well as the participants of the musical events share a question: to what extent will the situation have changed when the six-month suspension ends at the end of March?
The experts consulted by Somos Madrid are not very flattering. “In six months, the problem will certainly not be solved, in fact it is more than likely that they will continue to think about how to solve it,” anticipates Francesc Daumal i Domènech, acoustic consultant, legal expert and professor at the Barcelona School of Architecture.
Daumal sees two possibilities for acting on the Real Madrid pitch. On the one hand, continue to bet on a place with openings: “In an open stadium, with stands and vomit, you have to make very strong zenithal and lateral absorptions. But it is difficult for them to be fully effective with excessive sound volumes,” he explains.
“Here we find very high-power electroacoustic equipment,” Daumal continues. “So much so that, as he points out as an illustrative anecdote, “it even makes the stomach vibrate at reduced frequencies.” One of the keys, this doctor architect emphasizes, lies in the type of music programmed: the equipment repeatedly reproduces and amplifies the emissions of the bass and kick drum, which are very difficult to absorb through the barriers due to their low frequencies. sounds. “But the fact is that sometimes the scream of the audience exceeds the noise of the speakers themselves, because for the latter there are limiters,” he adds.
So, regarding this first alternative, he is skeptical: “If you opt for sheets and let the air continue to pass through, you have to implement very powerful absorbents. So much so that if I had a company dedicated to this and I was asked to take care of it, I would think about it, because I doubt that it could work.
The second possibility is to transform the Bernabéu into a “closed box”, which would require major works to partition the open spaces of the enclosure. Even assuming its execution, according to the acoustic consultant, the problem of ventilation arises: “Huge systems and adequate insulation of the outlets of these fans would be necessary, so that neither the noise of the premises nor that which they will generate escapes to the outside. the fans themselves.
If you opt for sheets and let air through, you will need to implement very powerful absorbents. So much so that if I had a company dedicated to this and they asked me to take care of it, I would consider it, because I doubt it would work.
In this case, other challenges would also arise: “The sound will bounce more, the echo will increase and it will have to be controlled with a large internal absorption.” For Daumal, in summary, “in both cases, the solutions are very difficult to achieve.” He considers that limiting noise to legal levels is “almost impossible.”
Currently, the Real Madrid stadium does not comply with the maximum permitted noise levels, despite having set the end of events at 11:00 p.m. At the last concert held there, that of Romeo Santos, 85 decibels were reached in the neighbors’ housescompared to a legal limit of 65 decibels.
The challenge of “acoustic coexistence”
Daumal proposes as a third option that the City Council led by José Luis Martínez-Almeida or the private entity that is causing the noise assumes the financial responsibility and carries out “the sound and thermal insulation of the affected neighbors in their own homes.” He states that “acoustic coexistence is very difficult” and specifies that “a social component” usually also appears in conflicts over noise: “Rejection can also come, in part, from not liking the type of people “where this noise comes from.” since.”
It is precisely the neighbors themselves who have the least confidence in the drastic reduction of emissions when musical events return to the grounds of the club chaired by Florentino Pérez. “We remain very attentive and vigilant because we know that Real Madrid’s intention is to fight again in six months, during which time the stadium will not be soundproofed,” said José Manuel Paredes, of the Bernabéu Injured Association, in conversation with this newspaper.
Sisters Sacramento and Inmaculada Ramos, from the Neighborhood Initiative Association for the Defense of the Environment and against the Paseo de la Habana-Padre Damián Tunnel, spoke along similar lines: “They put it in an open shirt that doesn’t cover any noise from what’s underneath, which is nothing more than the facades of the old Bernabéu. Only the floor and ceiling have proper installation. There was a previous project that called for a total closure, but it was supposed to be more expensive,” laments Sacramento. Inmaculada wonders how the problem can be solved now: “What are they going to do? Wall it all up?”
A reform technician’s “mea culpa”: “We will have to be patient”
This medium also contacted another specialist in acoustics applied to construction who collaborated on the renovation of the Bernabéu, and who, due to his involvement, prefers not to give his name. He acknowledges that the actions applied to make the venue a place of constant macro-concerts, such as the installation of glass screens or textile elements to stop the noise, “proved to be insufficient, as has been demonstrated”. “At the time, acoustic measurements were taken and these were common levels for any concert,” he notes.
Asked whether the same measurements taken inside the field were being taken outside to check the impact on neighbours, he said he did not know. He said that “in many projects, it is not known for sure how they will actually be developed until they are finished and operational”. He believes that “perhaps all the relevant prior transmission tests have not been carried out”, but from his point of view “the important thing is that measurements have been taken”.
“Companies specializing in acoustics have been called in to provide corrections and solutions,” he says, without knowing how and when these solutions could be implemented. “We will have to be patient, it is a stadium that, due to its characteristics of capacity, security and centrality, meets ideal conditions. In terms of acoustics, we must recognize that it can be greatly improved,” he says about this hall initially designed to host football matches (which explains its capacity, the good functioning of security or the fact that it is a central location) and not continuous concerts. (which is why (which acoustics is a puzzle).
