Having completed a sold-out, ten-day run at London’s Royal Albert Hall, British comedian Russell Howard’s Round the World show has taken the record for consecutive performances at the venue – previously jointly held by Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow.

The same show also took the record for the largest number of EM Acoustics Halo-C loudspeaker elements used for a single show, with system design and equipment supply courtesy of Dave Shepherd from the RAH in conjunction with Delta Sound.

With Shepherd taking the role of system tech, Delta Sound Senior Project Manager and Sound Engineer Stephen Hughes explains that Round the World tour wasn’t just named for its global reach, but also for the fact that the entire show is performed in the round, and therefore the production required a sound design capable of meeting those requirements.

‘Our extensive use of Halo-C for all our other configurations in the venue – not to mention the fact that it is now the RAH’s installed PA system – made it a natural choice for the final system design,’ Hughes says. ‘The use of low-flying screens and pyrotechnics added to the challenge of making a 360° experience sound crystal clear, despite the competing technical resources in the air and the venue’s famously challenging acoustic. However, Halo-C is renowned for its laser precision and accuracy and we are very experienced in the venue, so we were confident that we could make it work and sound fabulous.’

The design used 110 Halo-C boxes in six hangs of 16 cabinets each, with a smaller array of six boxes to cover the seated auditorium stage and four boxes per side to cover the choir stalls. The show system was driven by eight EM Acoustics DQ20 amplifiers, which were rigged in the roof of the hall, with cable management dropping directly down alongside the PA motor points for the shortest path between amp and speaker, and giving the hangs the cleanest possible look.

‘I’m pleased to say that the Halo-C performed exactly as expected,’ Hughes reports. ‘Up to 50,000 audience members came to see this show over its record-breaking run of ten days at the Royal Albert Hall, and Halo-C ensured that every joke landed perfectly.’