The opening celebration started with Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel addressing an exclusive crowd of 600 invited guests and went from there with performances from popular German bands, a multimedia mega-event titled Symphony of Lights - Welcome to Berlin, specially illuminated trains entering the station from both the east and the west to illustrate the coming together of the previously divided nations, a seemingly endless array of flickering lights, impressive laser effects, and some complex pyrotechnics. Over a half a million spectators filed in to see the new station.
To ensure that the excited crowd heard all of the music and announcements, a distributed system of over 300 self-powered Meyer Sound loudspeakers was supplied by German rental company Procon, with additional systems coming from London-based Capital Sound. On the left and right of the stage were arrays of 15 Milo high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers, to which were added 10 650-P high-power subwoofers set up in front of the stage for bass support and delayed and configured to produce a kidney-shaped coverage pattern.
But the real stars of the sound system were the 19 large towers packed with enough Meyer Sound loudspeakers to cover a 30-acre area. The area itself was actually split into two sections separated by the Spree River, each with its own FOH stations, which functioned autonomously on the northern and southern banks of the river, though linked together via optical waveguide delay lines and conventional copper wire. The digital audio source signals were sent to the FOH stations via Yamaha DM2000 mixing boards and rack-mounted processors, then routed to the various towers with appropriate delay times.
The last line of delay towers, which covered most of the southern area, consisted of five positions, each with six M3D line array loudspeakers and two CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers for near-field coverage. System designer and technician Thomas Mundorf (also a Meyer Sound European technical support representative) designated that three stations be installed on the other side of the river to cover the promenade on the edge of the southern area. Each station was equipped with three MSL-6 horn-loaded high-Q main loudspeakers and four DS-2P horn-loaded mid-bass loudspeakers, while four M3D-Sub directional subwoofers were placed on the lower river promenade.
Eleven towers placed across from the stage provided sound for the area north of the Spree River surrounding the vast square in front of the train station. Depending on the position, the towers held different combinations of Milo cabinets, 650-P subwoofers, UPA-1P compact wide coverage units, MSL-4 horn-loaded long-throw loudspeakers, and DS-4P horn-loaded mid-bass loudspeakers. All of the Milo arrays were controlled using LD-3 compensating line drivers and CP-10 complementary phase parametric equalisers.
Mundorf also used MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction software to help with installation of the line arrays, determining the delay times needed for the individual towers by first measuring the distance with a laser and then entering that, along with ambient temperature and humidity, into the program.
Christian Oeser, Procon's project manager for the event, says: "There were two things that made life quite easy for us at this event, first was MAPP Online Pro, because i
