Liam Feeney, managing director of TSM (The Sound Man), commented: "We were contracted to provide a sound re-enforcement system for up to 60,000 people, which is fine for a normal arena/stadium with sufficient equipment and the right people, but when we saw the venue and the circumstances we knew it would require something very special, so we turned to K.M.E."
Feeney added, "We made contact with Kerst Glass of K.M.E. and discussed specifications. We were aware of the difficulties involved including the audience area being merely the width of the street (approximately 10m), the PA system being located 60m away and across a river from the audience and also frequent wind directional changes. An added complication was the necessity of providing high SPL over the entire length of the street (approximately 300m).
"Kerst did not hesitate in assisting us and his team at K.M.E. gave us incredible support. K.M.E. even provided an engineer during the show, whose technical insight was invaluable in setting up the PANO Line Array for the demanding setting along the river Moy in Ballina," continued Feeney. "We also had to deal with the added complication of fireworks positioned adjacent to the loudspeaker stacks and in the end we decided to box each stack to prevent any stray fireworks from damaging our equipment."
Due to good weather conditions on the night the crowds eventually exceeded 75,000 people. The crowd extended onto the two bridges that span the River Moy. Prudently, TSM had installed two sets of eight K.M.E. QSA 500 D tops with eight CBA 700 D bins all mounted on two mobile scissor lifts, one set on each bridge.
(Jim Evans)
