"The sound from the M1Ds was clear and intelligible throughout the hall, despite the room size and difficult acoustics," says Urs Gammel of MDS PAtec Veranstaltungstechnik, provider of all sound, lighting and video equipment for the event. "The hall is a full 35 meters long, and with a very high ceiling, so we had to deal with echo and reverberation. Fortunately, the acoustics changed for the better when so many people came in!"
However, as the room filled with excited car buffs, the ambient noise level became quite high. Also, the system had to provide sufficient level to pump up the energy for eight dancers that pranced around the cars as they burst into the room. For uniform front-to-back coverage, Gammel specified left and right arrays of eight M1D cabinets each, with deep bass supplied by a quartet of small but robust M1D-Sub ultra-compact subwoofers placed underneath the stage. An LD-3 compensating line driver handled drive processing and signal distribution to all cabinets.
"Flying the M1D system was very easy," states Gammel. "It took us only 30 minutes to rig up all 16 cabinets. We used MAPP Online Pro (acoustical prediction) software to help us find the perfect quantity and splay angles for covering the room." He notes that his company now relies on the flexible M1D for a variety of corporate events because the arrays are "small, easy to handle, have good coverage, and are self-powered."
Other key audio components in the system included Sennheiser wireless microphone systems, an Innovason SY48 console, and a Denon CD player.
MDS PAtec supplied the AV equipment and system design under the overall direction of the event production agency, Rückenwind GmbH & Co Kg. The sponsor of the festivities was Porsche Olympia Park, the largest Porsche dealer in the region.
The hall used for the event is a rental space on the top floor of Haus der Kunst, or "House of Art," a massive 70-year old structure that was once a permanent museum but currently hosts only temporary exhibits and special events. The building also houses the P1 nightclub, which takes its name from a time after WWII when allied forces used the building for an officers' mess and the occupants shortened the address, Prinzregentenstrasse 1, to simply P1.
(Chris Henry)
