For the 2007 Canadian Winter Games, they only heated the venue enough to keep the FOH gear operational. . .
Whitehorse, Yukon, with its population of 23,000, has a cozy, small-town feel, as people have time to chat, and cars stop for people to cross the street even if the traffic light is green. This city is also one of the best places to see the mysterious phenomenon called the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. During a clear winter night when there is a high level of solar wind, the electrons discharge like florescent lights, and tourists come from all over the world hoping to see the sky light up in green swirls.
When the 2007 Canada Winter Games were awarded to the city of Whitehorse, they said they would put on the biggest show north of the 60th parallel. What they didn’t say was that it would be the coldest Canada Winter Games ever. Daytime temperatures during the games ranged from minus 27°F (minus 33°C) to minus 40°F (minus 40°C).
The biggest challenges for the games were keeping costs low while maximizing their value to the community of Whitehorse. To help reduce costs, a two-and-a-half-week spring break was scheduled to coincide with the games so that students could volunteer. In the end, more than 4000 volunteers were recruited. Families rented their homes not only to show their warm Yukon hospitality, but also to alleviate the shortage of hotel space.
The organizing committee needed to build a venue that was large enough to host the opening and closing ceremonies. Rather than build a permanent facility that would have been empty once the games were over, the committee decided to construct a 44,000-square-foot heated tent. The temperature in the “heated” tent rose to only 48°F (9°C). This was warm enough to keep equipment like DSP processors, speakers and mixing consoles within safe operating conditions, but the crew were seen dressed in outdoor winter clothing, huddled near personal heaters or competing for spots near the heating tubes throughout the show.
The opening and closing ceremonies were one-off shows, but because Whitehorse is so far, north it takes a week to truck the gear from Vancouver. This meant that the organizing committee had to rent the gear for a month. ProShow, one of Vancouver’s premier full service Audio/Visual providers, supplied all the audio for the ATCO Centre tent. Mark Fisher and Benoit Laurence from Proshow oversaw the project and made sure everyone stayed happy.
“The gig is a typical corporate show,” says Fisher, except for the extreme cold and the extra planning to make sure nothing was missing. “That far north you can’t just call the shop and ask for something you forgot.” To keep the costs reasonable, all the gear was owned by Proshow and there were no crossrentals or outboard gear. Local volunteers helped unload, and when local providers didn’t have the appropriate gear Craig Marcuk, a local freelancer, was hired.
To avoid having to fly in a big crew, Fisher, Laurence and Marcuk spent two long days setting up the sound system. While everyone had different roles, the entire crew of sound, lights, video projection and staging were willing to help each other out. Three stages ran the length of the tent. Hanging from each side of center stage were eight Meyer M’elodie speakers and a pair of Meyer 700HP subs, processed by a Meyer Galileo. Extreme left and right each had a pair of EAW KF650E speakers and a single Meyer 650P subwoofer. Fisher used 10 Electro- Voice Sx300s for front fill and 10 more for delays for the bleachers. Floor wedges were five mixes run through eight EAW SM200s. All the conventional boxes were powered by 14 QSC PLX amps and processed with three dbx Driverack 4800s.
Fisher and his crew used SMAART to set the tent’s delays and EQ the conventional boxes to match the M’elodies. With the three stages being so long, instead of delaying all the fill speakers to FOH, Fisher set up his delays by putting his measurement microphone in front of each delay speaker along a straight line across the length of the room. Audio was split between FOH and the CBC broadcast truck to send out the events live.
At FOH, Fisher sat on a coveted electric blanket in front of a Yamaha M7CL digital mixer and rode the faders for mains and monitors. Fisher was impressed with the new M’elodies, and he didn’t need to use any fancy EQ shading or tricks to make them sound good.
“The acoustics of the tent are surprisingly excellent,” Fisher says. “It’s a very dead tent, which makes it easy to mix.” He was concerned about the loud fan noise from the heating blowers, but CBC TV insisted the fans be turned off when the audience was seated and the show went live. Fisher ran a typical festival mix, reinforcing the best northern artists performing a variety of music ranging from hip hop, pop, choral and traditional Inuit on three stages. As the athletes arrived, Fisher played the appropriate track cues from his 360 Systems Instant Replay, and Laurence patched and set up the stage during the show. During rehearsals, Mark used a touch screen and a low cost Windows shareware program called Sports Sound Pro to playback cues.
“Sports Sound Pro program has more features and is easier to use than the current 360 Systems Instant Replay system,” says Fisher. “It can do a lot more — including playing compressed audio like MP3s and easily accommodate last minute changes on the fly.” The only drawback Fisher sees to the program is its reliance on the Windows OS. “I would use it as my primary playback device, if it ran on a more stable operating system like Linux.”
Despite the size and scope of the event, the opening ceremonies went without a hitch. The prime minister and all the provincial premiers were there to open the games, and First Nation Inuit natives played a large role in the ceremonies for the first time, too. For a few weeks, the Winter Games even outshone the Aurora Borealis.
GEAR
16 Meyer M’elodie
4 Meyer 700HP Subs
2 Meyer 650P Subs
4 EAW KF650E
20 Electro-Voice Sx300
14 QSC PLX amps
FOH
1 Yamaha M7CL
1 Yamaha M3000 (backup console)
1 360 Systems Instant Replay
1 Marantz CD Player
1 Meyer Galileo
3 dbx Driverack 4800
MON
8 EAW SM200
8 Channels of Shure U series wireless
