Coda Audio Production Editorial Archive
M3D Line Array for massive outdoor theatrical event
l Cielo che Danze (The Dancing Sky) by Italy's Studio Festi was 2006 Adelaide Festival of the Arts spectacular free outdoor event. Performed on & over the Torrens River at Elder park, this was aerial theatre on a massive scale. Click on the aerial photo for a map and additional pictures of the site. This technically challenging show employed six power boats, three cranes, 17 power generators, 65 technicians, 2,000 cubic metres of helium and 100 performers.
Coda Director Michael Wilkie was engaged as Sound Designer and chose an innovative approach to the considerable challenges of this event. Due to audio location cues, the north bank of the river and performance area was decided upon to site the main loudspeaker installations. This placed the main sound system 100 metres away from the front row of the audience area. For standard loudspeakers, this would not normally produce a good result.
However, predictions performed with Meyer MAPP Online software indicated the M3D line array was well within its limits
for this specification. For the technically interested click the left image to view a summary of the MAPP prediction. Additional
installations of long throw Meyer MSL6 arrays covered the extremes of the audience area. Several towers of MSL4 array delay
towers also provided support to the very far field (over 140m from the main system).
On-site, the M3D system performed as predicted, extending full bandwidth audio to its coverage area.
With its maximum output of 145 dB peak SPL at 1 metre, plenty of headroom remained in the system and indeed the loudspeakers
never approached their limit thresholds. No sub-woofers were required for this show, with the M3D operating frequency range
extending down to 35 Hz.
