Wonder Full features new and exciting technology that took Laservision three years to develop and refine. A team consisting of 100 specialists in architectural, design, creative, musical, engineering, technical and IT resources was drawn from its Hong Kong, Australian and Singaporean offices.
Three massive water screens illuminated by high definition video projection and optically pumped full colour laser systems face the audience at the Event Plaza, Marina Bay Sands entertainment venue featuring adjustable platforms. The Event Plaza is flanked by custom-designed media towers which bathe and envelope the audience in a true three-dimensional fantasy including surround sound, special effects and dynamic lighting.
The original sound score, recorded by the 140 piece Bratislava Symphony Orchestra is enjoyed through 7.1 surround sound generating over 50,000 watts of sound reinforcement. The music is broadcast simultaneously on the event sound system and on 103.9 FM - the official Marina Bay Sands radio station - Wonder Full Waves - so you can tune in and listen in real time as you watch the show.
In the past Laservision has successfully completed a number of prestigious installations using Bosch professional audio products and utilizing the expertise of Bryan Davidson, Bosch's senior engineer / manager for permanent installations.
"For this project Laservision wanted a high impact surround sound system which would be able to cover approximately forty metres," explained Davidson. "It also had to have a very low profile so as not too obscure the water fountains. I built a model in EASE finally settling on the EV large format line array system; two vertically stacked EV XVLS deliver a very tight vertical dispersion allowing sound to be thrown across water to the audience area whilst not spilling into other areas."
The EV XVLS speakers are a custom made waterproof version and also deploy EV's hydrophobic grill cloth which stops water entering the box. Each water screen has two XVLS speakers.
The deck area where 10,000 people can sit actually has three different orientations; it can be a flat deck or either elevated or declined at the front. Hence the audio system had to work in each one of the orientations and Davidson spent a lot of time tweaking the system to achieve the ultimate performance.
In order to ensure that technical equipment didn't impact on the aesthetics of the building eight multimedia towers, four either side of the audience area, were designed to house the rest of the speakers as well as some spot lights. The media towers are large cylinders 6m high off the ground, constructed from perforated stainless steel. When there is no show these cylinders hide and protect the technical equipment. At show time a lifting mechanism raises the cylinders by three metres, the speakers go up into position and a searchlight pops out of the top.
"I placed four EV XLD281 compact line array cabinets plus an EV X-sub subwoofer in each media tower which gave me the 7:1 surround sound" said Davidson. "These also employ the EV hydrophobic grill cloth; I consulted with the brilliant Dave Carlson from EV in Burnsville in order to work out the exact grill perforation requirements so that the sound could exit correctly and the cylinder didn't resonate."
(Jim Evans)
