BEIJING — In one of the most-watched global media events of the year, the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing was held on Aug. 8 at the newly constructed Beijing National Stadium (known informally as “The Bird’s Nest”). The Opening Ceremony marked the beginning of the 29th Olympic Summer Games. Sound Media Fusion facilitated the event audio system design, programming and deployment, which prominently featured JBL VerTec line arrays, Crown I-Tech amplifiers and Soundcraft Vi6 digital mixing consoles.
Gary Hardesty (Chief Designer, Audio- Beijing Olympic Ceremonies Department; Technical Consultant, Panasonic for all Olympic Ceremonies and competition/non-competition venues) had the complex but rewarding task of specifying and implementing the massive, multi-zone, distributed sound reinforcement system approach to integrate portable and installed speaker locations.
“All FOP [field-of-play] speakers needed to be self-powered arrays due to highly restrictive physical space limitations,” explained Sound Media Fusion’s Gary Hardesty. “In the case of the JBL products, I needed small size and a lot of SPL, not to mention predictable coverage. The JBL VerTec DP systems were part of a very large, distributed multi-zone system, and they performed flawlessly, exceeding my requirements and expectations.
The sound quality was very good. Overall, the venue sound for the event was excellent with an “in-your-face” direct sound characteristic throughout the audience area. We achieved excellent acoustic isolation from zone to zone with zero intelligibility problems. Even considering the massive venue size, the result was very, very good for all concerned.”
Numerous Harman HiQnet-compatible VT4888DP-AN powered midsize line array elements and VT4882DP-AN companion subwoofers with JBL DrivePack technology were selected to cover various portions of the stadium, including array locations dedicated for use in critical end-zone locations.
These were configured as ground-based stacks, each containing two or three enclosures. Arrays were masked with neutral gray weather-protective covers, and many speaker units were installed behind facades and integrated into Hardesty’s overall system design underneath temporary staging platforms, including the five Rings Plaza and the National Flags Platform. Additionally, a total of 26 JBL MS-26 ultra-compact fill speakers were dedicated for second tribune and VIP stand fill.
Passive speaker systems were powered by Crown I-T6000 and I-T4000 power amplifiers, compatible with hundreds of other Crown amplifiers installed for the venue’s audio system infrastructure. Additionally, Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles were part of the event sound system.
Sound Media Fusion’s efforts for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games were assisted by Harman Professional’s Chinese distributor, ACE (Advanced Communication Equipment) whose staff provided JBL and other Harman brand product application information and regional technical support.
Duncan Edwards was on hand as a direct assistant to Hardesty for music programming and system tuning. “The technical collaboration between Gary Hardesty, Duncan Edwards and the entire Chinese team, including Ma Xin [assistant sound designer to Hardesty] and Jin Shao Gang [FOH sound engineer for the opening ceremony], was inspirational to see,” observed ACE’s Bingo Tso. “This teamwork has resulted in a highly successful achievement, the most spectacular sound reinforcement project in the nation to date.”
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