The event is now in its 11th year, and Entec has serviced it right from the start. For the last four years, they have used a similar d&b sound system, which is designed by systems tech Liam Halpin, and refined, fine-tuned and tweaked slightly each time they work in the venue.
Halpin was also crew chief, and worked alongside a core Entec crew of four engineers - Matt Butcher (looking after FOH), Mark Ellis-Cope (monitors), Adam Draper (patch) and James Kerridge (stage technician), with the event project managed in the office by Entec's head of sound, Dick Hayes.
The 'house' consoles were a DiGiCo SD7 for FOH and a DiGiCo D5 for monitors, and also provided was an Avid Venue, running a two expanded ProTools record rigs. These had additional HD192 interfaces for all the ambient mics, effectively giving 64 channels of record, with some elements of the orchestras sub mixed.
The speaker system consisted of a main left and right hang of 14 x d&b J-8 cabinets and outer hangs each side of nine Q-1s. There was a centre cluster of six deep J-SUBS.
A single flown C-4 (top) out-shooter per side was used to fill the often overlooked areas at the ends of the circle, while the choir stalls were covered by a Q-10 and a pair of Q-7s each side.
For front-fills each side, they used two Q-SUBS and a Q-10 for the front of the arena floor, plus a single Q7 to do the front of the stalls, together with a Q-7 positioned at the top of the stairs for the top halves of the stalls. A pair of E3's fulfil the stage lip centre coverage. Four B2-SUBS running in 'infra, mode were ground stacked beneath the stage - starting at 60 Hz and going downwards. All of this was powered by d&b's D12 amps.
For monitors, d&b C-7s provided side-fill cover and 18 M-2 wedges were available, with some Q-SUBs for drums. Five channels of Sennheiser G2 from Entec were offered as the 'house' IEM system, with main acts supplying their own.
The 'house' SD7 console was used to mix the opening acts each night, with most headliners bringing in their own FOH set ups and desks (Squeeze and Roger Daltry's were also supplied by Entec).
Says Halpin, "The RAH is always a challenge to work in - acoustically and space wise - to get it sounding fabulous from all angles. With 60 or 70 channels of bands, orchestras and extras, the stage suddenly becomes very small!" So, practicalities like keeping the monitor and FOH areas small to accommodate incoming productions, all help make for smoother working days."
Dick Hayes concludes, "As always, it's a great honour to work on this high profile event for such a worthy cause. Although we have developed what we consider to be the optimum audio system for the space for everyone's enjoyment of the performances, we are constantly listening and making small improvements that only come with long term experience and understanding the nuances of such a complex space."
(Jim Evans)
