Described as ‘the ultimate space adventure holiday’, Cornwall’s Eden Project been taking families on a mission to Mars, inviting them to play mini-golf on Mercury and encouraging them to slide down the surface of a moon.

Enhancing the sonic realism of this trip around the Solar System is a series of Martin Audio CDD-WR (Coaxial Differential Dispersion) weatherproof loudspeakers, including 15 pairs of CDD6-WR and a pair of CDD5-WR– all driven by just a pair of Martin Audio multichannel iKon iK81 eight-channel class-D amplifiers.

Running for six weeks, Expedition Space is an all-new programme of intergalactic activities that has been taking place across Eden, giving visitors ‘an extra-terrestrial holiday of a lifetime’ including planet-hopping, meeting alien friends and enjoying out-of-this-world fun such as moon buggy driving and virtual reality experiences. Space explorers have even been able to climb aboard a rocket and blast into orbit while enjoying spectacular views of the Moon.

‘The CDD series was selected as it covered everything we needed from the system,’ explains Eden Project Facilities Technician Jonathan Stamp, who was also technical designer on the Expedition Space project. ‘The key point was to have a high quality, compact, full-range box that produced even dispersion to our audience– and the CDD series does that extremely well.

‘Our 30 CDD6-WR and pair of CDD5-WR all-weatherised versions have been split over seven different spaces to handle a mixture of immersive BGM tracks and live voiceovers.’

The spaces include: Departure Lounge (four CDD6-WR); Spaceship Take-off Pod (four CCD6-WR); Moon Deck (eight CDD6-WR); Universe Tour (six CDD6-WR); Spaceship Landing (four CDD6-WR); Mars Tunnel (two CDD5-WR) and Mars Viewing Pod (four CDD6-WR).

Each zone has its own soundtrack, triggered in real time by actors through BrightSign players and QLab software. These are used to reproduce sound effects (such as space ship engines, warp speed), voiceovers (live actors and pre-recorded messages) and audio tracks to contribute to an immersive theatre piece.

Stamp says that the immersive experience has been greatly enhanced by the sound effects, and adds that once Expedition Space terminates at the beginning of September, the CDD-WRs will be redeployed on future Eden Project productions.

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