Fresh from appearing in the Chinese TV series I Am A Singer, Tan Weiwei performed at the Beijing Workers’ Gymnasium – with help from EZpro and an EAW Anya sound system.
The arena located to the west of the Workers Stadium in Beijing, and orginally hosted the 1961 World Table Tennis Championships. It presents an acoustical challenge for live sound applications, as the loudspeaker location is in very close proximity to the main LED screen and the audience. In addition, it has a limited load-bearing capacity As a result, the sound reinforcement system must be as compact as possible to avoid weight and visibility complications while still providing coverage throughout the venue.
Chinese distributor EZpro took on responsibility for the sound, providing 24 Anya modules and 24 Otto subwoofers, along with two KF394 point-source loudspeakers for front fill. After modelling the gymnasium in EAW Resolution software, it was determined that LR arrays of Anya modules would provide the majority of the coverage. Each array was made up of a column of eight Anyas to cover the main audience area with another column of four for out fill. Bass support was delivered by 24 Otto subwoofers ground stacked in two groups of 12 below the Anya arrays.
MaxTeam, one of the largest pop music performance agencies in China, was responsible for sound production for the tour, providing touring services for Asian superstars Sun Nan, Wang Feng, Xu Wei, Jay Chou and Exo.
‘We have used many loudspeaker brands in Beijiing Workers’ Gymnasium before, with most not meeting the SPL requirements in the upper audience area,’ says MaxTeam FOH engineer, Minjohn Lin. ‘It is common to hang arrays of 18 enclosures each as well as subwoofers. Initially we asked EZPro to provide 36 Anya modules but after we checked the acoustic modelling in Resolution, we knew that 24 would be more than sufficient.’
With the parameters are input to EAW’s Resolution 2 software, the Anya arrays generate a phase-coherent, full-range wavefront across the defined coverage area. In this case, the area was the audience seating, while the domed ceiling and walls were excluded to avoid unwanted reflections.
‘It is such a large venue yet it only took two arrays of 12 modules to achieve a uniform high SPL coverage – that’s incredible,’ adds concert sound system designer Wei. ‘The compact Anya array not only solved the weight problems but the load in and set-up time was extremely efficient.’
‘Anya line arrays flown at 8.7m achieved consistent coverage at the front, centre and rear audience areas,’ Minjohn Lin concludes. ‘Everyone was incredibly impressed with the sound quality and coverage.’
More: www.ezprointl.com
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