Sound.com handles National Games of India ceremonies
Published: ASIA
INDIA: Sound.com has provided a JBL Vertec speaker system for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 35th National Games of India, the first event to be held at the new Green Field stadium in Trivandrum in February.
Also known as the Trivandrum International Stadium, the venue is India’s first DBOT (design, build, operate and transfer) outdoor stadium, and has been designed for cricket and football games, with a seating capacity of 50,000. Constructed to FIFA and ICC norms, this is the only stadium in the world where both games can be played to international standards.
For both ceremonies, the stadium was set up for a PA system in the round. Sound.com configured its system into 24 Vertec stacks: eight consisting of three VT4889s and one VT4880A and 16 of three VT4888s and one VT4880. Facing the stands behind each of the 24 stacks was an SRX712M stage monitor used for artists’ performances during the cultural events. The main system was powered by Crown ITech-HD12000 amplifiers with ITech-HD4X3500 for all VIP and monitoring amplification.
‘We were able to provide coverage in the stands using a very good set of measurement devices and JBL’s line array calculator,’ explained Sound.com managing director Warren Dsouza. ‘Data was fed into the Performance Manager file that serves as the main command centre for all loudspeaker systems.’
An Optocore system provided digital audio redundancy transport, giving a total of six nodes across the stadium, at the north, south, east and west sides of the venue as well as FOH and monitor nodes. This provided a closed ring forming a digital routing matrix, guaranteeing robust cable redundancy, with further redundancy provided by dual power supplies in audio devices such as the consoles. All VIP tribune podiums and athlete oath mics were picked up from the Optocore X6R-FX devices from the west node and routed straight to the main Soundcraft Vi6 mixing console and the Yamaha CL5 used for protocol events. Sound.com ensured that every speech microphone was coupled with a wireless backup system, with a Shure UR3 used as backup for the VIP tribune and a Shure SM58 wired line backed up with a wireless Shure UR2 for the athletes’ oath.
The audio team was led by chief systems engineer Sunil Karanjikar and Mr Dsouza, who was audio director for the games. ‘For Sound.com, the National Games opening and closing ceremonies are very important events in the calendar,’ said Mr Dsouza. ‘Despite handling events including the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010, the Indian Premier League cricket tournament and the previous National Games held in Ranchi in 2011, the National Games 2015 in Kerala was different as we had never done a project in the state before, and these ceremonies were decided over an e-tendering process. Our experience on ceremonies and sporting events bagged us the job. We worked with our trusted and highly trained team members such as replay engineer Raghu Ramankutty who is from Kerala, so the local language did not pose a problem. Meanwhile, mix engineer Mark Thomas manned the Soundcraft VI6. Since there was so much happening at short notice, we wired the CL5 racks through Dante via our HP Procurve switches that also served as our overall networking control. This allowed Raghu to mix on the CL5, so three pair of hands ultimately mixed the ceremony.
‘At Sound.com we are not only proud of building robust networks but also in complimenting them well with skill sets that gain experience with every passing event.’