LONDON — Members of The All England Lawn Tennis Club, which runs Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world, care deeply about tradition. But like it or not, change happens, and as RG Jones Sound Engineering and their custom Martin Audio AM Series distributed stadium system has proven, it pays to be flexible.
“When the requirements of this system were first set out three years ago, it was specified for a speech-only system,” noted RG Jones’ Tim Speight, who managed the installation for The All England Lawn Tennis Club jointly with Jon Berry. “We were told that music events would never be staged there.”
Some traditions, such as outdoor grass courts, are burdened by such downsides as extensive rain delays, however. To celebrate the inauguration of its new retractable roof over Center Court, Wimbledon staged a TV spectacular — and with more than just the spoken word.
Along with a display of exhibition tennis, those gathered for the grand “closing” of the new roof heard performances by Katherine Jenkins, Faryl Smith and the four-man classical/pop group Blake.
Jenkins and Smith performed “Amazing Grace” to coincide with the roof inching its way across to full cover position for the very first time. RG Jones worked with the production company 360 Events to stage the production, broadcast live on BBC2. The music, Speight noted, “was magnificent right across the dynamic range.”
Hoping to ensure that outcome, project engineer Steve Carr’s team stacked four additional pairs of Martin Audio’s WLX subs in each corner, under the two-way AM10 mid-high roof, to boost the low end.
“The Club hierarchy all attended the first sound check,” Carr recounted, “which was quite nerve-racking, since it was the first time the system had been used; but their reaction couldn’t have been more complimentary. For a 100V line distributed system it sounded unbelievable; from the speech intelligibility at courtside, to the huge vocal range of Katherine Jenkins. It all sounded fantastic.”
Carr mixed the show from courtside on a 32-channel Yamaha LS9, taking VT play-ins and sending splits to the BBC OB trucks from a 360 Systems Instant Replay broadcast quality playback machine. Katherine Jenkins and Faryl Smith had their sound mixed by Dick Rabel, who also provided Audio Technica mics. Some of the performers were on IEM and presenter Sue Barker used a Sennheiser radio mic with an Omni capsule.
Martin Audio’s EASE specialist, Peter Child, had provided the modelling data after specifying a system with front and rear facing color-matched loudspeakers that offered coverage and intelligibility.
“With the need to work around lighting, it was surprising just how much change was required in resetting the loudspeaker positions,” Carr said. “However, it was all relatively straightforward and came well within the specification.” The real test of the system, he added, will come during the Wimbledon Fortnight.
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