| SIRIUS SHOWEQUIPMENT AG AND CRYSTAL SOUND COORDINATE MASSIVE JBL VERTEC® LINE ARRAY SYSTEM DEPLOYMENT FOR WORLD YOUTH DAY Concluding
with a mass led by Pope Benedict XVI, the World Youth Day’s
audio system featured 104 public address |
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| LONDON, ENGLAND, September 11, 2005 — In one of the largest and most prestigious events to ever demonstrate the versatility and power of the JBL VERTEC® line array series, World Youth Day recently drew in excess of 1.1 million young Catholics from 177 different countries to Cologne Germany. With countless religious leaders on hand for the event, World Youth Day kicked off on August 16 and culminated on August 21 with a mass led by Pope Benedict XVI.
The massive gathering required an equally immense sound system, which included 104 public address towers comprising JBL VERTEC line array elements as the main PA for the field. In total, the system incorporated 102 JBL VERTEC VT4889 full-size line array elements, and 80 JBL VERTEC VT4887 compact line array elements. Hundreds of additional supporting loudspeakers were used, bringing the overall total to more than four hundred boxes. This included 50 VRX932LA portable line array enclosures serving VIP seating areas near the stage for dignitaries from around the globe. The system was powered by 124 Crown MA-5002vz amplifiers with PIP Modules and 48 Crown I-Tech 4000 amplifiers, with signal distribution from BSS Soundweb. Sharing live audio responsibilities of World Youth Day were Sirius Showequipment AG of Niederdorfelden/Germany and Crystal Sound of Karlsruhe, Germany. Working with another Germany-based company, Neuman & Müller, the entire sound crew numbered over 85 people including 24 stagehands. The entire project required nine days of setup, two days of rehearsals, two show days, and one day for tear down. Amazingly, all the equipment was broken down and loaded into trucks within eight hours. “The technical characteristics of JBL’s VERTEC system helped our team achieve the audio and logistical goals for a very discriminating client,” noted Gerd Gruss, co-owner of Crystal Sound. “VERTEC’s simple rigging, lightweight design, excellent fidelity and high output power helped ensure a successful event.”
According to Sirius Showequipment AG owner Wolfgang “Schabbach” Neumann, World Youth Day dwarfed previous live sound events he has worked on--no small statement considering his long-standing expertise in professional audio. “Imagine you have 104 towers with PA speakers on a wide field instead of just left and right PA with two to four delay towers, and that walking from one end of the field to the other takes you more than half an hour if you’re fast,” Neumann said. “The biggest difference for this event was the site dimensions we had to deal with. For example, 20,000 meters of fiber optic cable were needed to distribute the signals to the signal-delayed towers on the field.” To that end, the largest challenge Neumann and his crew faced was calibrating the delay times, levels and coverage pattern for each PA tower in cooperation with sound designer Thorsten Schulze and Germany’s “Mr. Measurement” Anselmn Goertz to ensure a minimum of interfering sound from the other nearby towers. “That’s quite a job because we had to do this 104 times. It took nearly two days to accomplish, even though we had done our homework with a list of tower numbers and signal-delay times in our hands.” However, thanks in part to the reliable, high-quality sound and predictable coverage of the JBL VERTEC arrays, World Youth Day proved to be an overwhelming success. “In the end after everything was set up, everybody was really happy with the sound produced by the VERTEC,” Neumann said. “Speech and music performed beautifully out of the system. Even in the farthest corners of the field you could easily understand every single word with no problems.” About JBL Professional: About the Harman Pro Group: # # # |
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Copyright © 2005 JBL Professional. |
