With more than 45,000 audience members on each of three consecutive nights, Scandinavian dance trio Swedish House Mafia returned to the live scene after a six-year hiatus with a huge production at Sweden’s Tele2 Arena. With their production managed by Mattie Evans and mixed at FOH by sound engineer Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Sargeant, the band’s team looked to Britannia Row for these highly-anticipated gigs.
Britannia Row’s Josh Lloyd was sound system designer with Dave Compton managing the account. The full show took three days to install, with the sound department working around a very large video screen, not allowing speakers to appear in front of the LED. Sargeant, whose connection with Brit Row spans two decades, notes that that all of the team ‘get fully involved in the design of the system – it’s always good to have the best people onboard’.
An L-Acoustics loudspeaker system was chosen to ensure an ‘intimate’ sound experience around the arena, as well as to deliver plenty of bass. Lloyd placed main hangs of L-Acoustics K1-SB, K1 and K2 with K1-SB, K1 and K2 also flown LR for side hangs.
The size of the audience called for three delay positions – delay A had K1-SB and K2, delay B (per side) had K1-SB, K1 and K2, and delay C (per side) comprised K1-SBs, K1 and K2, creating even coverage throughout the venue. ‘Rabbit wanted to hear a lot of sub everywhere, so I came up with the idea of designing a centre flown sub cluster of KS28s,’ Lloyd says. ‘To do this in a single zone meant it behaved as though it was coming from one source, and it worked really well for these events, ensuring even coverage throughout the venue.’
Front fill was provided by L-Acoustics SB18 subs and Kara elements, with KS28s ground subs, while all amplification was provided by L-Acoustics LA-12X amplified controllers, which were flown in order to minimise cable length to the speaker hangs. ‘When playing dance music of this style, the system can be put under a lot of stress, yet a recurring comment, especially from the band, is that everyone was really happy with the sound,’ Lloyd says.
Sargeant mixed on a Solid State Logic L550 console and used the new SSL Fusion, a two-channel mastering unit. Britannia Row supplied the monitor package and engineer, with Alex Hore mixing the band on an SSL 300 console. Brit Row also provided Sennheiser 2000 Series IEMs and custom chrome Shure Axient Digital ADX transmitters.
Compton, who attended the first show, reports: ‘It was Britannia Row’s first time working with Mattie Evans, and we had a lot of fun along the way with this production. We’ve worked with Rabbit for 20 years now, and it was a big challenge due to the size and importance of these shows, while factoring in the other production elements.
‘If the audience, band and crew are happy, you know it’s a job well done, and I’m glad we achieved that.’
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