The Intercontinental hotel was completely transformed by a team of builders, artists, and technical designers taking 5,600 man hours to complete. Decorative structures were supplied by Deco Sun. L&S & Co. KG, Hupfer Beschallungstechnik, and Darkselection & Co. KG all whom own Adamson inventory, came together to provide complete sound production. Kaluza&Schmid managed the event, and PAM Events, Jands , LichtBlick Bühnentechnik provided lighting.
A discreet sound design was created for four separate stages and was executed by Adamson Europe applications specialist David Dohrmann, whose Shooter 2.7.1 designs provided a fully accurate picture of the final result. Dohrmann also oversaw the setup and tuned and time aligned the systems.
Four separate areas needed sound designs, and between them speeches and various musical styles from a classical String Quartet, a Big Band, Rock Bands and DJs had to be accommodated. The organizers had a strict corporate design in mind; the promoter and design agency wanted the sound system to be completely camouflaged or hidden away, yet there was a need for a powerful PA system which was requested on the various artists' technical riders. BAP, Stefanie Heinzmann, Andrej Hermlin and his Swing Dance Orchestra headlined the event.
The main stage had a unique design at 12m (40ft) deep it featured three different elevations from 0.6m (2ft), to 1.5m (5ft) and 2.5m (8.2 ft). It would have to support a classic 30's Big Band playing in the back with vocalists in the foreground, and a rock band who'd play in the front of this stage. These two bands would alternate right through the evening, and at midnight, an Italian raffle 'Tombola' would require accurate and evenly distributed speech reinforcement throughout.
The main stage set-up consisted of two Adamson SpekTrix cabinets with two SpekTrix W 15 degree under-hangs per side firing front and flown off the truss left and right of the stage. Due to the design of the hall, both sides of the stage had large wings off the dance floor, therefore side-fills consisting of Metrix 5 and 15 degree cabinets were hung on a 100+ degree angle beside the main arrays, a single flown Point 8 centre-fill was added, and finally two Spektrix Subs per side were hidden into the stage structure in an end-firing cardioid configuration. The monitor rig used on the main stage was a full Adamson lineup, lead by eight M15's, one M215, one M12, and two 10MX's.
(Jim Evans)
