Held 1 October 1 - the 60th anniversary of the 1949 revolution - this year's celebrations featured 200,000 participants, an array of large, festive floats representing cultural, sporting and national successes and culminated in a 60,000-person evening rendition of I Love China in Tiananmen Square accompanied by a 300,000-shell fireworks display.
Overall sound design was delegated to Radio Film and TV Design Institute of the China Media Group, with the bulk of audio-specific systems integration shouldered by Hong Kong-based ACE Professional Sound and Lighting. Although the sheer magnitude of audio logistics outstripped the capabilities of any single supplier, ACE contributed the lion's share - roughly 80% - of all audio gear deployed in and around Tiananmen Square, with near universal reliance on highly integrated systems from Harman Professional. All told, equipment supplied by ACE included nearly 700 JBL loudspeakers plus more than 480 Crown amplifiers, 57 BSS Audio DSP units, and 46 Soundcraft analogue and digital mixing desks.
"We'd also supplied systems for the 50th anniversary in 1999," says ACE vice president Bingo Tso, "but this year's project was perhaps 10 times as large. The size of the systems, along with newer technologies - line arrays, digital consoles and DSP amplifiers - made it extremely important to have everything working together. Fortunately, using HiQnet System Architect, all the Harman Professional equipment integrated perfectly."
(Jim Evans)
