After working with leading Hungarian artist Magdolna ‘Magdi’ Rúzsa for more than a decade, Martin Audio’s Hungarian partner, BG Event, is accustomed to rising to unique challenges. Two recent shows at the 12,500-capacity László Papp Budapest Sports Arena proved no exception.
Rúzsa requested a 50m-long catwalk thrust stage,linked to a 6m x 6m B Stage. While her five-piece rock band would occupy main stage, the in-the-round secondary stage was where a 10-piece orchestra would perform. The sound reinforcement required careful positioning and time alignment of nearly 200 loudspeakers.
Knowing he needed to take a radically different approach from a standard deployment, BG Event Project Manager Gábor ‘Mazsi’ Bácskay consulted regular freelance system designer, Marci Mezei over a system that would require two unique EQ profiles in his mixer, muting and automatically changing time alignment depending on which location was being used. Also, he knew that such a long extension would obviate the need for further delay points in a venue measuring 120m from the stage to the rear seating.
The main stage PA comprised two hangs of MLA, each 15 elements deep plus an MLD downfill, with two hangs of 12 deep MLA used for out hangs. A flown hang of eight MLX subwoofers was used on the left wing, supported by additional groundstacks of MLX, six per side, in an end-fire configuration. ‘To balance the low frequencies we backed the MLX off by -6dB, which worked much better,’ Mazsi says.
It was on the B Stage that the magic took place for an acoustic orchestra comprising strings, horns, double bass, acoustic guitar, piano and percussion. Here, three hangs of 14 MLA Compact were flown at the end of the B Stage thrust, used as delay positions to support the Main Stage, and then taking over as the primary system when the B Stage was in use.
The main stage MLA and subs were automatically muted when the action moved to the B Stage, while the side hangs remained unmuted and realigned to the B Btage PA. Four further hangs of 14 MLA Compact were distributed along the walkway, two aside. ‘The MLA Compacts took over from the first row, and by using Hard Avoid [in Martin Audio’s Display software] we never experienced any feedback problems with the PA whatsoever,’ Mazsi says.
BG Event finessed the PA set-up to achieve evenly distributed coverage throughout the venue by adding ten Martin Audio CDD-Live 8 for near fill on the second stage, while six MLA Compact delivered similar duties on main stage. The musicians all took their reference sound from foldback comprising a combination of Martin Audio XE300s and discreet DD6s.
Explaining the monitor set-up Mazsi says: ‘Having been with the band for 15 years, monitor engineer Ferenc Nagy still adopts an old-school approach. He likes to work with wedges – especially [Martin Audio’s] XE series – and while the standard band remains on IEMs, he preferred to provide the orchestra with wedges.’
However, with 60m separating monitor world from the B Stage he was unable to get clear sight of the band; he therefore received assistance from Miklós Ábrahám, who used a second monitor surface on the same network.
‘When the singer originally came up with this idea, we had to figure out a way to do it,’ Bácskay says. ‘It was a complex situation, but she was more than happy with the result.’
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