Shure enables discussion at the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting

LAOS: Laos’ capital city, Vientiane, recently played host to the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. The six-day event comprised several meetings that were attended by hundreds of international delegates, media representatives and observers and as such, required conferencing and interpretation systems to enable intelligible discussion. With prior experience in facilitating summits for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Malaysian rental company Audio Synergy Projects & Concepts (ASPC) was selected as the A/V solutions provider for the meeting, and as a Shure Conferencing Network (SCN) partner, deployed a setup based around Shure’s DCS 6000 digital conference system.

Dignitaries from ASEAN member states took part in 22 ministerial meetings as well as additional bilateral meetings and post ministerial conferences that were attended by 10 international dialogue partners. To cater for this, the DCS 6000 system implemented consisted of 76 DM 6680 P portable conference units that were split between seven rooms and supplied each attendee with a microphone unit. The two largest conference rooms were also equipped with a camera control system for tracking the speaker to provide visual reinforcement on a series of screens.

The room layouts had to be constantly changed throughout the summit depending upon the requirements of each meeting. Therefore, ASPC took advantage of the DCS 6000’s DCS-LAN connection that makes use of Cat-5e cables in a daisy-chain formation, allowing for the removal and repositioning of each conference unit as needed. The system also provides extra security when necessary by way of its audio scrambling functionality. To ensure reliability thoughout, ASPC also set up a 20 channel ULX-D Digital wireless system as backup solution.

‘The stakes are always high at such events. Leaders from around the world gather to discuss critical topics, and they expect to be heard and understood clearly,’ explained K H Thong, director of ASPC. ‘This is why we chose the Shure DCS 6000 system, and it performed admirably. It allowed us to focus on other aspects of the A/V setup, without worrying about audio consistency or quality.’

On the interpretation side, ASPC teamed with fellow SCN rental partner, Thailand-based Mighty Mouse. Together, the rental companies distributed 514 DR 6032 digital infrared receiver units to attendees, while deploying 16 portable IS 6132P interpreter units across the interpreter booths.

The venue included two separate country rooms with between 15 and 20 country booths at any one time. Each booth was equipped with large plasma screens for the media and observers to watch the meetings that were taking place in the meeting rooms. The audio distribution network was extended into the country rooms via four RA 6025 digital radiators.

‘From an audio perspective, the entire summit was a great success. The attendees were provided with clearest sound at each and every meeting, a major achievement for such an important and large-scale event,’ concluded Mr Thong. ‘The DCS 6000 worked extremely well with the other components of the A/V setup. Having confidence in your sound system is priceless and Shure and the SCN will continue to be a trusted partner.’

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