Over the past few weeks, Simonds Stadium, has been a hive of activity and the construction of the light towers are now hard to miss.

Again, during the early hours of the morning another 73 meter tower miraculously appeared and by sunrise the city of Geelong had welcomed its second light tower along Moorabool Street.

The two light towers now stand tall and proud, gearing up for round 10 of the AFL calendar, where Geelong will stage its biggest night event in history. For the first time ever, Kardinia Park, will light up the city and Geelong will see the Cats host its very first night game against the Gold Coast Suns, on June 1st 2013.

With the help from the Australian Government’s 10 million grant, which was contributed through the Regional Development Australia Fund, Geelong will now be able to provide broadcast quality lighting for a number of significant events, including Cricket (T20), Soccer, Rugby League, Union and AFL.

The tall towers that stand today were based on wind tower turbines called, Cylindrical Towers. Each tower weighs around 160 tonne and made up of four components, lower and upper base, neck and head, with 144 bolts holding each tower in place at the footings. Each tower will use 101 light fittings, however, they have the ability to hold 130 bulbs in case the standard of future lighting levels increase.

If a light globe blows it won’t impact on the lighting level for an event and they won’t need to be changed immediately. The life of one lamp is approximately 2000 hours. This means if each event ran for five hours this would enable 400 events to be staged at Simonds Stadium. If the stadium was to host 10 five-hour night events a year, the lamp life would be close to 40 years!

The construction of the third tower will commence in the next coming weeks, using a crane that takes three hours to move from one light base to the next. The completion of the four towers is scheduled for the end of May, ready for the Cats first night game against the Suns.