RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Outline loudspeakers were used at the 2010 Global Competitiveness Forum, a meeting featuring appearances by world leaders and CEOs including Tony Blair and Michael Dell.
Held at the Four Seasons Hotel, in the Kingdom Centre, the Global Competitiveness Forum has been sponsored annually by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) since 2006. It is covered by TV networks including Al Jazeera, NBC, Bloomberg, and other media outlets.
The event's mission is to increase awareness and enthusiasm on the challenges of competitiveness, critically assessing its aspects in relation to international trade, innovation, the environment (new forms of energy), development of human resources and sustainability.
At GCF 2010, discussions focused on the consequences that determine the fact of "becoming competitive" on a global scale.
Along with Blair (U.K. Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007) and Dell, speakers included Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of General Electric, John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, James Wolfensohn, 9th president of the World Bank Group, Robert Greifeld, CEO of the NASDAQ OMX Group, Alessandro Profumo, CEO of the UniCredit Group and chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bank Austria, Paolo Pininfarina, chairman of Pininfarina S.p.A., Enrico D'Onofrio, corporate general manager of MV Agusta, Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University, Delos M. Cosgrove M.D., president and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, Stephen D. Pryor, CEO of ExxonMobil Chemical Company, Glenn Lowry, Director MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.) and other guests.
Events AVP, whose chairman is Sharif Tabbara, Outline's exclusive distributor for Jordan, supplied the sound reinforcement system and audio equipment for the conference. (Events AVP had also recently provided the sound reinforcement system for the World Economic Forum in Dubai.)
For GFC 2010, Events AVP equipped the conference hall, which measured 50 by 40 by nine meters, with 6+6 Butterfly Hi-Packs and 2+2 Subtech 218 SP. Control and power were courtesy of a Yamaha M7CL console, XTA processor and Outline T series amplifiers.
As monitors, the speakers on stage had at their disposal two compact Outline Micra II SP enclosures, while six units were used on front-fill duty to cover the first rows of seats.
The media rooms for interviews conducted by Al Jazeera, NBC and Bloomberg were equipped with six more Micra II SP, while four Outline DVS 12 enclosures (in pairs) were used to reinforce the sound in other two halls (each seating 60 people), hosting university professors and other academicians.
"In this case, there was no need to work at 135 dB, but to cover the audience perfectly with a very ‘well-mannered' SPL," noted audio chief and FOH engineer Carlo Gennaro. "There again, we had no alternative, considering the position of the microphones compared to the PA. But, as I've repeated for years, with a minimum of energy, the Butterfly gives a wonderful intelligibility – it almost seems to ‘breathe,' and it doesn't matter at what distance. It goes exactly where I point it and you can feel the sound ‘in your face.' I give the merit for this to its waveguide, one of the few that works superbly…in fact, I'll go as far as to put in writing a thought I have in common with several of my colleagues: on the world market, there are numerous line arrays, but on the ‘mid-high' frequencies there are only two items able to give the same performance are this device."
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