The final chapter in legendary Norwegian artist Åge Aleksandersen’s career, his final appearances Åge & Sambandet – Takk for Oss tour saw 75,000 fans attend three sold-out concerts at Lerkendal Stadium in Trondheim. Delivering the sond, Trondheim Lyd used an extensive Alcons Audio pro-ribbon system.
With a 25,000-capacity venue filled to maximum on three nights in September, the sound reinforcement needed to meet uncompromising requirements for SPL consistency, frequency response, sightlines, and stage management. The audience area covered approximately 130m/427ft x130m/427ft, with the highest seats reaching 19m/62ft. The brief called for a tolerance of ±6 dB from 32Hz to 18kHz across all seating zones. Visual considerations added another layer of complexity as the concerts were to be filmed for future release, so loudspeaker placement had to respect sightlines for cameras, lighting and pyrotechnics. With FOH positioned 30m/98ft to the side and only two delay towers permitted, system design demanded careful precision.
A flown subwoofer design was requested to achieve even low-frequency distribution and an optimal front-to-back SPL ratio. Minimising on-stage leakage from PA and fill systems was equally critical.
Trondheim Lyd was supported by JUR from The Netherlands and Electrosound from Sweden through The Ribbon Network, Alcons’ global dry-hire support network. TrondheimLyd won the tender by presenting a system that met every requirement, designed by Trondheim Lyd system tech Erwan Thomas and consultant Arnstein Fossvik.
Their solution combined 40 Alcons’ flagship LR28 larger-format pro-ribbon line array modules, 20 per side, with 28 LR24s mid-size pro-ribbon line-arrays, 14 per side, for out fill. The main systems were supported by 24 flown double 18-inch subwoofers and 16 ground-stacked triple-18-inch cardioid subwoofers to achieve the desired front-to-back balance. The delay system comprised 48 LR24 line arrays with 12 flown double 18-inch subwoofer arrays.
A wide range of Alcons pro-ribbon loaded fill systems, including LR18 line-arrays, RR12 point-source arrays and VR12 point source monitors, provided seamless transitions between coverage zones.
In total, 188 Alcons cabinets were deployed, powered by 66 Sentinel10 10kW amplified loudspeaker controllers. All Sentinel units were fed with 96kHz AES3 digital signal and configured with the recently introduced AES-priority with analogue fallback function.
‘Stadiums are notoriously difficult acoustic environments, with unforgiving hard reflective surfaces and inherent slap-back echo,’ Thomas says. ‘Consistency in voicing across all Alcons systems, combined with the extended HF throw and the very coherent wavefront of the pro-ribbon transducer, allowed us to achieve smooth coverage and maintain a consistent tonal signature across all audience areas.’
‘Having the right loudspeakers is important, but understanding the client’s needs and offering the flexibility to meet them, is what truly makes a project succeed,’ Fossvik adds. ‘With this set-up, we felt we had enough speakers to do the job properly – and the customer, the band and the audience were all very happy.’
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