Celebrating the versatility and dexterity of the British Army, the event is held to raise money for a number of praiseworthy charities, including the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity, Walking With The Wounded and ABF the Soldiers Charity.
This year's event was commentated by British Actor Anthony Andrews and paid tribute to the Tournament's traditional aspects, including a field gun run, the White Helmets Motorcycle Display Team and performances by the Massed Bands of the Royal Marines and Royal Navy.
Delta Sound's involvement was orchestrated by project manager Mark Sawyer who has been the lead sound designer for the British Military Tournament each year since 2010. Mark worked alongside a team of experienced audio engineers including Guy Davies who took care of systems, Phil Wright on front-of-house and monitors, Adrian Bradley who operated Pro-Tools and playback and Graham Colley and Steve Cooksey took care of all communications and radios.
In terms of creating even and transparent live audio, the British Military Tournament presents a number of challenges, particularly when dealing with the high ceilings and reflective surfaces. Added to this, the team were required to provide sound for the entire arena, ranging from the floor where the seating area begins, to the very top of the bleachers. Accounting for this, the engineers ensured that the systems' equalisation and power driven through the PA refrained from aggravating the arena's tricky acoustics.
For the main PA, Delta deployed a substantial L'Acoustics system comprising of 12 individual line arrays flown on a central truss which lined the perimeters of the main performance area. This included 8 hangs of 10 Kudo which provided coverage for the main seating areas, supported by four hangs of 12 d-VDOSC used for fills. The d-VDOSC arrays were positioned in each corner of the central truss, providing coverage for the smaller seating areas either end of the venue.
For front-of-house sound, Delta opted for a digital console, utilising its extensive range of DiGiCo desks. For this show, the team needed a desk which could accommodate for the high number of inputs and also offer plenty of headroom and flexibility. As such, Mark chose to implement Delta's SD5 desk which easily hit all of these marks. The SD5 was also used to mix the small number of monitor hotspots for the live orchestra and also for the fills which provided coverage for the Royal Box.
(Jim Evans)
