With around 120 NEXO loudspeaker cabinets flown high above their heads, singers from 26 countries competed for the Eurovision title. Audio for the event was handled by Starlight, which chose the NEXO GEO T tangent array system, which they have used so successfully on the Melodifestivalen in the same arena.
According to Eurovision Technical Director Ola Melzig, “It fulfills our need for clarity and efficiency plus it’s tiltable and lightweight for this application (important in an already crowded roof!)”
Mattias Winther, the FOH engineer, explains that the unusual PA system design was in response to the two-stage set. In total, the Starlight PA used 98x GEO T4805 cabinets plus 8x GEO T2815 downfills, spread across main, L/R outfill and delay arrays. 12x NEXO CD18 subs were flown in two clusters next to the outfills.
Mattias continues, “in my work as a freelance, it’s hard to favour one speaker over others. Often the choice is based on other criteria than sound quality. In this case the excellent rigging system was one main factor. The tilt or sigiht angle needed was very steep and it was only the GEO T rigging system that allowed us to get our desired aiming. The cardioid pattern is a good thing too. The system worked very well and gave us the necessary coverage, and the design gave us good gain before feedback for the headmics in use.”
The PA was running on a Dante network, “distributing sound and controlling all EQ, delay, levels, etc., over one cable, in this case fibre due to the length of the runs.”
98x NEXO GEO T4805 Main/outfill/frontfill
8x NEXO GEO T2815
12x NEXO CD18 subs
2x NEXO S2
4x NEXO PS10
LAB LM 44 & LM 26 for PA management (DANTE network)