Case Study · Electrical Delivery · Public Sector
Scotstoun Stadium
96 floodlights, one immovable date, and somebody else's building site.
The context
A date that could not move.
In September 2024, Glasgow agreed to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games. The Opening Ceremony was set for 23 July 2026.
That left under two years to get the venues ready. Scotstoun Stadium — the Athletics venue — needed a new track, new groundworks, and floodlighting capable of meeting Commonwealth Games standard, replacing an installation whose as-installed drawings date back to 2010.
Glasgow Life appointed EGG Lighting as electrical contractor for the lighting.
The brief
Four masts. 96 heads. Two phases.
Four masts at 25 metres. 96 floodlights, 24 to a column. Two phases.
EGG's scope was the electrical work: safe isolation of each column, removal of the 96 existing heads, installation of 96 Abacus Challenger luminaires — 1500W, 5700K, DMX-driven — then testing, certification and aiming. The existing switching arrangement was retained. Abacus, as manufacturer, replaced the bracketry on the masts and carried out remedial works on the columns, with their engineers on site alongside EGG's team for much of the programme.
Work started on site on 28 July 2025 and handed over in September, in time for Glasgow Warriors' 2025/26 season and for the Athletics clubs who use the track year-round.
Phase Two, in early 2026, brought the installation up to Commonwealth Games standard.
Phasing it this way kept the stadium operating throughout. No season lost, no fixtures moved.
Heads replaced across four 25m masts
Isolated and proved dead before work began
Phases, delivered around a live venue
Design level, verified on site at night
What the brief didn't say
Scotstoun in the summer of 2025 was not a lighting site. It was a track site.
Malcolm Construction had stripped out the old Athletics track and prepared the sub-base; their surfacing division, Woodholme Construction, laid the new asphalt ahead of a MONDO track installation. DYNAMIK Sport ran the site as principal contractor. EGG worked as a guest on someone else's programme — inducted by DYNAMIK, signing in and out of their logbook, agreeing access every morning.
The constraints were daily:
Which columns could come down was decided each morning, not in advance, depending on where the track-laying team had reached. EGG negotiated permission to lower two at a time where it would speed things up — but only with the site manager's agreement on the day.
A lowered column lies across the track. Where new surface was already down, 18mm plywood protection went down first.
The telehandler needed for the bracket work couldn't go on a wet track — in Glasgow, in August — and couldn't be left on the track overnight under any circumstances.
Part of the on-site storage building was unusable due to RAAC in the rear rooms, restricting materials handling to the front section only.
None of it was negotiable. None of it moved the Games.
How it was delivered
Not heroics. Procedure, and a conversation every morning.
Every column was isolated before anyone touched it
Point of isolation identified, locked off, labelled, key retained by the operative doing the work. Proved dead across every combination of line, neutral and earth, with the test equipment itself proved before and after. No live working was permitted on this project under any circumstances, and the risk assessment said so in terms. All electricians on site worked to 18th Edition, with an SSSTS operative present at all times.
The cabling was specified on site, not at order stage
The runs between luminaire and driver could only be settled once the masts were surveyed — lengths and terminations aren't knowable when an order is placed. EGG specified it: 8-core H07RN-F 8×1.0mm². A small thing that becomes a large thing if you find it in week three with a track going down around you.
The drivers sit at the base of each column, not at the head
The column had a weight limit, so low-level mounting was the sound structural choice. It also means a driver failure can be attended from ground level — without lowering a mast or booking a lift. The drivers are DMX compatible, so the installation is not locked to one luminaire for its service life.
The sequence was built to be reordered, not queued
If the track team's progress ruled out a column that morning, the crew moved to another rather than standing down. Heads were installed per the lighting design documentation, mast section by mast section, pre-aimed from ground level as closely as design allowed, with an IPAF operative and a lift later in the programme for final aiming.
The day ended the same way every day
Circuits made safe and re-energised where safe to do so. Plant stored clear of the track works. A daily handover to the DYNAMIK site manager setting out the next day's working area, and a daily report back to EGG head office.
Testing followed the full sequence — continuity, insulation resistance, polarity, earth fault loop impedance, prospective fault current, RCD and phase sequence — with Minor Works Certificates and lux readings required at handover. The 96 removed heads, redundant cabling and packaging were returned to EGG's stores for recycling.
Verified on site
The design document specified 1,500 lux across the field of play, with a tolerance of 10%. The team walked the arena at night, taking readings against the design figures. Every reading fell inside the tolerance.
The result
Six days, in front of the world.
Glasgow 2026 ran for 11 days. For six of them — 27 July to 1 August — Scotstoun hosted the Athletics and Para Athletics programmes: 43 and 16 medal events across 12 sessions.
The lighting performed throughout.
The company we keep
A competition surface, and lighting measured against its own specification.
The track EGG worked around is a MONDO installation, specified to a competition standard. The lighting was specified to 1,500 lux across the field of play and verified against it on site. A venue needs both to keep hosting championships.
It was never a temporary build. After Glasgow 2026 the MONDO surface stays, Glasgow Life continues to operate the venue, and scottishathletics gains another competition track.
Lighting is part of that legacy. The floodlighting EGG installed is what lets the venue keep hosting championships long after the Games have moved on.
The surface remains
MONDO track stays in place post-Games
Operated locally
Glasgow Life runs the venue year-round
Community use
Athletics clubs train on it week in, week out
Future championships
A venue that can host at the top level
There is no version of this project where the lighting is finished late, or finished badly and fixed afterwards. The track goes down, the venue hands over, the world arrives.
For work where the consequence of getting it wrong is public and permanent, the measure of a contractor is whether anyone had to think about them at all.
Not our first visit to Scotstoun
The stadium is the most visible part of a longer relationship.
EGG has worked across the wider Scotstoun campus for Glasgow Life since 2023.
| Year | Project | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Scotstoun 11s | New LED floodlighting across six columns, fully certificated |
| 2025–26 | Scotstoun Stadium | 96-head replacement, brought up to Commonwealth Games standard |
By the time the stadium work started, EGG was not a new contractor learning a venue. It was the team that already knew it.
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