The recent Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race held earlier this month in Geelong, Victoria, saw Melbourne-based event architects Moon Mother Productions field Allen & Heath Qu, SQ and dLive systems to provide live and broadcast feeds at a number of sites and locations.

Set in the surf town of Torquay and hosted by 2011 Tour de France winner Cadel Evans, the four-day event comprises multiple bike races, that attract some of the world’s fastest cyclists to compete across miles of scenic coastline.

One of the largest hire inventories of A&H consoles and accessories in Australia allows Moon Mother Productions (MMP) to take on a wide range of events: ‘As a very busy and growing audio company we need products that work flawlessly all of the time,’ says MMP Business Development Manager, Tim Dalton.

‘The variety of A&H products at our disposal gives us the flexibility to deploy the appropriate piece of kit for the job in a cost and space effective manner, and with an event such as this where space really is at a minimum, A&H consoles were perfect for the job.’

Taking place across a huge site with complex audio requirements and multiple audio systems, the Great Ocean Road Race requiered systems that could communicate with each other.

Thanks to its high I/O count, flexible routing options and ability to handle the complex distribution of audio signals, a dLive system was placed in an isolated cabin in the backstage compound; comprising a dLive S5000, which tackled FOH and monitor duties for the main stage, paired with a DM48 MixRack and two DX168s fitted with super Madi I/O cards, which fed comms and streaming. The system was also used to link to four other systems around the site, enabling feeds to be shared between independent setups for live entertainment and commentary, background music, broadcast, A/V and live streaming.

Due to the nature of the event, a range of compact mixing solutions were also required for more remote locations and thanks to their minimal footprint, several SQ and Qu systems were utilised on site.

Providing complex patching and processing, an SQ-6 tackled audio distribution for the musicians and performers over on the Entertainment Stage, while a further SQ-5 ran audio and commentary at a second audio ops base over at the Torquay start/finish line. Additionally, two Qu-16s handled stereo and broadcast feeds in the DJ Corner and King of the Mountain (KOM) area.

‘We used Allen & Heath products throughout and didn’t even consider using another console due to A&H’s easily configurable I/O and internal processing power such as ducking, gating and compression,’ Dalton says. ‘Matrix mixes were also used extensively across the site, and this was another major factor in choosing A&H consoles. We’ve been main audio production and stages supplier to this event since its inception six years ago and have just been signed up for another three years.’