Eighth Day Sound is again at the helm of the production, coordinating multiple universal stadium systems that at times are air-freighted with the stage set, leapfrogging across several continents to meet the tour.
"Each tour system is comprised of two SD7 Mach III systems at FOH outfitted with Waves and two Waves servers, with one running on a UPS for redundancy," explains Eighth Day chief technology officer Jason Kirschnick. "A 192kHz DiGiCo SD Rack at FOH is loaded with 32 analogue ins/32 analogue outs, as well as 24 AES ins/outs for local I/O. At the stage end for FOH are two more 192 SD racks loaded with 48 analog ins, eight AES ins, eight AES and eight analog outs.
"We are deploying an Optocore switcher so there are three fibre loops for FOH-one loop of all three racks for FOH is connected to a Route 66 Optocore fibre router device. The primary console is in a loop with the two respective engines to the Route 66 as well as the second SD7 at FOH in a loop with the Route 66. This enables us with a push of one button to move the entire rack loop between the two FOH consoles for support acts and dual redundancy. At the monitor end is another SD7 running two Waves 9 servers (with one running on a UPS). There are two more 192kHz SD Racks at monitors loaded with 48 analog, eight digital inputs, 40 analog and eight digital outputs each."
The PA system is d&b audiotechnik, comprised of 96 d&B J Series made up of a combination of J8 and J12s (four hangs; 24 boxes deep), 32 d&B Flow J subs (four hangs of 8 deep), 48 d&B B2 subs on the ground (stacked on each side of the stage and along the front of the stage), 12 d&B Q7 front-fills (spread across the front of the stage), with a stadium delay system consisting of four hangs of 12 d&B V8 and V12s.
"The system is all-digital at 96kHz," adds Kirschnick, "with a complete analog backup comprised of Dolby Lakes and LM44s with wireless control of the complete system. The d&b amplifiers are all monitored and controlled remotely through the entire system as well."
(Jim Evans)
