With an estimated 40m watching online, in cinemas and on the ESPN3 sports channel, Seoul’s Sangam Stadium was filled to its 45,000 capacity for world final of the League of Legends showdown. The online game has swept the globe finding particular popularity in South Korea, with Star Horn Royal Club from China taking on Korea’s Samsung White for the final encounter. Top teams from Asia, Europe and North America came to compete for the championship title, the Summoner's Cup, and the $1,000,000 champion prize.
Built for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the stadium called in Rhino Sound Systems to design the sound reinforcement inside the bowl. With production values high, the Seoul-based company rigged its 32-cabinet EAW Anya system and battery of Powersoft amplifiers.
The opening ceremony featured Korean traditional drummers, an orchestra and US rock band Imagine Dragons, who were visiting South Korea for the first time.
The biggest challenge that 3G’s Will Taylor faced was determining where to place the PA. It was important to keep the SPL levels on the stage to a minimum in order for the gamers to hear the shoutcasters. Because of the size of the stage, placing them left-right in front of the stage interfered with audience sightlines. Taylor worked with EAW’s product support team to create a design that positioned the Anya arrays behind the stage and kept the sound levels on the stage low.
Rhinosound System Engineer Gwon Seung Cheoul (known as Paman) said that, although this was a long way removed from being a rock concert, the disciplines were the same. The use of the 32-box Anya system is believed to be the first worldwide deployment of two 16-element hangs – all controlled by dedicated Resolution 2 software, operating over Dante. This automatically configured the best performance parameters and conditions. A second laptop was used solely to control the EAW Resolution 2 software driving Anya. Subs comprised 20 EAW SB1002 and SB2001 (in an end-fire set-up).
Anya receives system parameters via EAW’s Resolution 2 software. The process of tweaking the system did not involve dropping the PA to make adjustments, instead the engineers changed some of the numbers, uploaded the new settings and the system was adjusted to suit the client’s needs.
‘The ease in which the system can be modified without a lot of work was particularly advantageous at this event,’ says James Bamlett of EAW Asia. ‘We were easily able to make adjustments until the sound was exactly where the clients wanted it, and it was simple to do. It is one of the most spectacular features of EAW’s Adaptive Performance gear.’
Paman configured the amplifier racks at the company warehouse, using 80 Powersoft K10 boxes and 43 K3s. ‘I spent two weeks prepping the show which was an amazing size,’ he says. ‘We used Powersoft’s DSP so I could control and monitor all the amplifiers from my laptop using the Armonía software.’
Powersoft provided EAW Greybox-specific plug-ins for Armonía: ‘We drove the EAW MW12 and MW15 stage monitors using this plug-in loaded onto the Armonía and Powersoft DSP, and it sounded great,’ reports the system tech.
When Rhino first invested in Powersoft it was because it liked the economy of the 1U rack size, combined with the power output: ‘It was the perfect amplifier, with very low power consumption.’ At Sangam Stadium, all Powersoft amplifiers received audio from an EAW UX8800 controller on a combined network so everything could be controlled from FOH via 11 UX8800 controllers.
The EAW subs were driven by Powersoft K10s, proving themselves during the performance by Imagine Dragons: ‘I always use the damping control function. In the outfield, running cables over 20m or 25m,’ Paman says. ‘But using the Powersoft damping control function the quality of the sound changed immediately and was really great. Driving the subwoofers the sound also changed enormously, it was much tighter and had more punch – and I loved it.’
In summary, he believes the League of Legends World Finals to have been the most challenging event he has ever designed a control network for, ‘but the success was due to the Powersoft technology – not only the external Powersoft amps, but also the Powersoft modules in Anya itself.’
‘Anya was the right technology for the application,’ adds Will Nealie, the audio consultant for the event. ‘Set-up time was short, throw distance was long, and expectation was high. Anya met all of the requirements. The players, fans and everyone there had a fantastic time.’
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