GUANGZHOU, China – The opening ceremony of the Asian Games in China was bound to invite comparisons with the Beijing Olympics, but organizers were determined that Guangzhou would be different from anything that had gone before.
To begin with, these opening ceremonies were held outside of an athletics stadium. From the performances to the setting, the ceremony showed signs of innovation – including K-array speakers with their slim-line appearance combined with ample output.
Guangzhou, a Chinese coastal city not far from Hong Kong, is proud of its maritime tradition; in recognition of the city's seafaring heritage, "water" was a main theme of the opening ceremony. The event took place on an island in the middle of Pearl River, with the Guangzhou skyline as an illuminated backdrop.
Four LED screens stood out as stylized sails, making it appear as though the entire island had become a sailboat. The athletes arrived floating down the river in 45 Chinese sailboats – one for each country at the games. They arrived at the ceremony one by one.
Each boat was equipped with a K-array KR200s system, connected to the main PA by radio, enabling the athletes to listen to live feed from the ceremony as they arrived. The design concept was for the speakers on the boats to be heard but not seen. KR200s were chosen to fulfill that requirement.
Music played a central role on the opening night, with 21 composers charged with writing music for the event, including Chinese pianist Lang Lang, who played a piece on the piano written for the evening. There were also speeches from athletes, performances from drummers, and a series of amazing traditional dances with a modern twist.
The sound system had to offer precision as well as wide coverage, as the main stand seated 27,000 people. The main sound engineer for the opening ceremony, Tony Liu, chose K-array speakers for a variety of different applications, with 140 K-array systems used in all during the event.
In addition to accompanying the sailboats, KR200s speakers were also used as main PA for the spectators, placed every 10 meters all the way up the main stand. A conventional PA would have likely blocked spectators' view of the event, but the 2.24-inch wide KR200s are so thin, they enabled acceptable sightlines for the entire crowd.
Liu was impressed by the performance of the KR200s, describing the low end as "deeper than expected" and "tighter" than other sub-woofers. Moving across the stand from left to right, it was impossible to notice the phase between the two banks of speakers.
K-array Kobra KK50 line array elements were placed along the front of the VIP section, which hosted the Chinese Prime Minister among other dignitaries, provided the required sound quality from only 20 inches of hardware. Their performance-to-size-ratio helped the Kobra speakers meet the requirements while nestled just under the hand rail in front of the VIPs.
Guangzhou's and K-array's big moment in the limelight was watched by two billion spectators live on CCTV, the Chinese state television channel, with images and clips being instantly sent all over the world. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, was effusive in his praise for this cutting-edge welcome to the 2010 Asian Games, describing it as "absolutely fantastic," and "technically very sound."
For more information, please visit www.k-array.com.
