The National Disability Insurance Scheme rally, with the Prime Minister as a guest speaker, saw the stage positioned in typical fashion at one end of the arena. The PA system comprised of two hangs of five JBL VRX 932LAP speakers and some VRX subs.
"The system was actually too loud," commented Michael Papas, managing director of AVCorp. "You could hear low frequency reflections from the roof which muddied up our sound. We dropped the level a little and it gave us very good speech intelligibility with good coverage. I knew we would get the coverage but I was surprised at just how good it was."
The versatile and lightweight JBL PRX speakers were used as in-fill and out-fill at the front and for foldback duties on stage.
AVCorp also use their Soundcraft Si Compact 32 digital live sound console for every Allphones Arena production.
"We had video playback via DVD where the audio was out of sync in the first scene but by having the delay facility in the Soundcraft console, we were able to set the delay to sync up the audio for that first scene," explained Papas. "When the video cut to the second scene we were able to switch it out. All of this was done on the fly."
The next gig was the Lingerie Football where the PA consisted of four hangs of five JBL VRX 932LAP speakers hung from the centre of the arena and by all accounts, the coverage was unbelievable.
"It was remarkable," added Papas. "Working to a budget on this one, we didn't put any subs in. However they had a DJ who really cranked up the sound and their FOH guy asked us where we had placed the subs! He couldn't believe there weren't any. Personally, I thought it was a little too loud but was pleased with the result and the response from a very happy client."
A week later, Papas and his crew were back in Allphones Arena for the State of Origin Party with the stage positioned along the length of the arena. Again, four hangs of five JBL VRX 932LAP speakers were used.
(Jim Evans)
