The sold-out Opening Ceremony was a three-hour spectacle, where the audience watched more than 5,000 performers and volunteers participating in a breathtaking show at Singapore's National Stadium, witnessing a new world-record for multimedia projection display that was broadcast live to all the member countries in South East Asia.
For several years, Singapore-based The Show Company (sound rental provider) has used Nexo PA systems for its prestigious events. It all started with NEXO PS15s in 1996, and soon followed with Alphas, Geo S, Geo-T, Geo-D-, the CD subbass series, and lately the new modular line array STM Series, which were delivered in December 2014 and debuted on the ZoukOut Moon Stage rave party in Singapore.
It was also December 2014 when The Show Company initially approached Shah Tahir, the sound designer from the SEA Games committee, to express their interest, identifying the perfect occasion to push the new STM Series modular line array into the Asian limelight.
With the STM M28 compact cabinets coming onto the market in the fourth quarter of 2014, The Show Company was able to propose a complete system solution and arranged a speaker demo to the committee. Nexo's David Hochstenbach and Nicolas Kirsch assisted The Show Company design team of Desmond Fong (project director), Jon Sim (audio project manager/chief systems engineer), and Jerome Soh (chief field engineer RF Systems).
The committee required a PA system specifically for the opening and closing ceremonies to deliver a high quality sound reinforcement system throughout the stadium, and redundant digital transport system to distribute throughout the venue.
The Show Company had to work with the existing acoustic challenges because of the structural issues of the stadium especially its dome-shape roof, and there was no quick solution to this. The team used Nexo's NS-1 proprietary software design and modelling software to achieve precise positioning and an optimum result, as NEXO's Nicolas Kirsch confirms, "the sound is clear and detailed even though that huge dome shaped roof gives a 7 sec reverb time. STM is soooo precise."
The stages consisted of a Field of Play which encompasses practically the whole field as one big stage, a Music Stage for bands, and a Robot Stage for performances. The Show Company's responsibility for delivering high-quality audio resulted in an overall design involving flown and groundstacked STM Series modules, with additional point-source PS Series speakers for holding areas and stage monitor redundancy.
In the roof were 10 flown clusters, each with nine STM M46 main modules s, nine STM B112 bass, four STM S118 subs and two Nexo Universal Amp Racks (NUAR) each, with the NUARs flown behind the clusters to keep speaker cables short and lightweight. These covered the top 2 tiers of seating and VIP balconies.
Trackside, there were 12 groundstacks of threeSTM M28 mains, two STM B112 bass and two STM S118 subs to cover the first tier of seating. These clusters provided same detailed and clear powerful sound but with more vertical splay. The STM groundstacks proved to be a vital element in this stadium configuration as they allowed coverage for the seats under the balcony, not covered by the flown array.
Another six ground stacks of 2x STM M46 mains and 2x STM S118 subs focussed on the performers area, to be used as a 'foldback system' in case the wireless in-ears of MCs and performers failed.
(Jim Evans)
