Phone(613) 9898 5319
Phone(613) 9898 5319
admin 28 May 2026
Running a community netball club means ensuring the safety of the players is at the forefront of everything while operating on very tight budgets. Netball is a fast game with many quick changes of direction. The high altitude of some passes and constant jumping make visibility crucial for players. When games or practice is played at night or in poorly lit areas, the lack of light has a negative impact on both player safety and performance.
Many clubs still have obsolete facilities/lighting that don't comply with the code. SES Lighting aligns with local sporting organisations to provide a fully compliant system. Understanding of the codes and current conditions gives us the information necessary for any upgrade to your facility.
Australian standards govern all Australian outdoor sports lighting systems. The sports lighting system for Australian outdoor sports facilities must conform to AS 2560.2:2021 (with AS 2560.2.4 only providing recommendations for netball & basketball (revised)).
Compliance with this standard requires three principal criteria.
Measure the total amount of visible light falling on the court surface. Inadequate brightness directly reflects how competitive a game being played is:
Raw brightness means nothing if light isn't evenly distributed on the court. Uniformity ensures no troubled dark patches or blinding "hot spots" on the surface.
Due to the fact that players spend a fair share of the game looking fairly high upwards in order to keep track of the high-lobbed passes or shots at the rim, large glare imposes a great risk on safety. The standard imposes an upper limit (GR) of 50 for outdoor netball courts in order to protect the players from glare.
When trying to upgrade their facilities or fix their dimly lit courts, local committees tend to make four common mistakes that they'll find themselves making over and over again:
The most common mistake that the clubs will make is to buy off-the-shelf (non-engineered) LED floodlights and install them on existing pole structures without having an engineering plan prepared beforehand. Old metal halide luminaires distribute light in an entirely different way to new LED luminaires. As a result, when you perform a direct swap of the luminaire types, you typically will create an enormous amount of light uniformity problems, resulting in a checkerboard distribution of very bright areas and pitch-black areas on the playing surface.
Commercial or Industrial LED floodlights are designed to illuminate a large area, such as a large parking lot or a large warehouse. When used courtside, they are completely unshielded and tend to light up a defender’s eyes looking for a rebound. Proper sports lighting should have precision asymmetric optics that project light directly downward onto the court surface rather than horizontally in the direction of the players’ line of sight.
The layout of a netball court involves demarcating an area (called the Principal Playing Area [PPA]), but foot traffic while playing netball will often extend beyond the PPA. Many clubs just have light sources aimed into the area inside the markings, no illumination for the safety run-offs beyond the PPA. Safety run-offs as part of the total playing area shall be a minimum of 75% of the light level measured on the player playing area. The light is often not sufficient at the edges of the PPA, and this causes injuries like rolled ankles and bumping into the boundary fences.
Most modern heavy-duty LED sports luminaires will have large aluminium heat sinks used to keep the fixture cool. If a club fixes a heavy-duty luminaire that was manufactured for greater structural requirements to a light pole constructed for lesser requirements, there can be catastrophic structural failures. The structural integrity of each pole must be verified to ensure it can support both the physical weight of the new luminaire and the wind load "sail area" of that luminaire during high-wind events.
The custom LED netball lighting designs also elevate safety and club usage capability and reduce overall operational costs.
Modern LED solutions provide the following:
Investing in the lighting of your netball court is a significant commitment; it is more than just putting in new, higher wattage bulbs.
Interested in upgrading your court?
Do not take a guess with your court’s lighting as it relates to player safety and compliance. SES Lighting provides full AS 2560.2-compliant free lighting audits and professional photometric designs tailored to your court's layout and budget.
Contact SES Lighting today to discuss your next sports lighting project!