Aktuelle News & Schlagzeilen

Corona: Duke University Commencement given the green light with Martin Audio’s MLA Compact

After the widespread cancellation of the 2020 Graduation and Commencement season in the States, students were anxious to know whether this year they would be able to celebrate the completion of their degree programmes on a grand stage. Cooper Cannady of Martin Audio partner RMB Audio, the event’s long-term services provider, was faced with the same conundrum.

“We have serviced Duke University Commencement at the Wallace Wade Stadium (in Durham, North Carolina) since the evolution of the campus back in 2003”, says the RMB Audio owner, whose company is based nearby. “This year I was invited to initiate planning for an event which I knew may never occur.” However, when University president Vincent Price finally received the green light from the Center for Disease Control and North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the RMB Audio tech team had to function test all equipment that had been dormant for one year.

The event was set for May 2; the stage loaded in on April 23 and the RMB Audio crew arrived on April 27. With strict socially distanced guidelines in force, the layout kept changing. “Every day brought with it a new scenario”, states Cannady. While some 5,700 students had graduated, 2,000 undergraduates would attend, originally spaced 6 ft apart in the inner field (to engage them closely with the event), while the seating plans revised to allow an  additional two guests. The 40,000-cap stadium would now host a total of 6,000 attendees, and the original 6 ft social distancing was reduced to 3 ft.

However, with the new seating design came a revision of the audio orientation. The planned seating at 180 degrees to the stage now increased to 220 degrees, placing seating behind the video wall. “We were tasked with improving the audience experience in a setting that was entirely new from what everyone had practiced for years. Suddenly we were unable to accommodate a third house left MLA Compact tower and instead had to deploy a stealth Martin Audio W8VDQ, driven by iK42 amps, to cover the expanding audience”, explains Cannady.

This was integrated and concealed at the base of the further house left tower, while the two hangs of 12 MLA Compact enclosures at stage right were accompanied by a single hang of 12 MLA Compact at stage left. “Decorators were insistent that no cabinets could be within the main camera image that required Martin Audio DD12’s to be placed on stands at ground level corners of the stage to cover the centre first row of seats”, says Cannady. The changes had been necessitated by the fact that the additional guests were set behind the stage in a J-shape, without visual access to the stage, but instead to a large Jumbotron at the far end of the field, the I-MAG supported by two LED walls, stage left and stage right.

However, such a sparsely occupied stadium presented challenges for system tech Matt Johnson. “It meant there were more reflections to deal with, although we generally have reflections off the seating in any case”, he says. In Martin Audio’s Display 2.3 operating software, they deployed the Hard Avoid function to mitigate these reflections. Three identical lecterns were placed on stage, one of which was used by singer-songwriter John Legend, who delivered the commencement speech and also received an honorary degree. There was no live orchestra present this year - only a pre-recorded track - but there was a 7-piece a-cappella choral group spaced 4 ft apart.

“From the presenters’ perspective we set the monitor gain above the stadium reflections by having a monitor engineer listen from the stage participant position via a Neumann microphone to distinguish the monitor pulse and the SPL of the stadium reflections. We also had a medical kit, windscreens for the mics with disposable wraps, cleaning and sanitisation which was all very discreet.” The RMB Audio staff on duty included Roger Dennis, Matt Johnson, Wayne Sowder, Rick Null, and Robert Weddings.

(Photos: Bill Snead/Duke University Communication/Selden Smith/RMB Audio)

www.martin-audio.com

© 1999 - 2024 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories