The annual three-day Jalsa Salana international gathering of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community takes place on a 200-acre farm in the UK, where up to 35,000 people from across the world congregate to hear the Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association (AMC), Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad delivers a daily address.
In 2016 Simon Honywill had helped Jalsa Salana mark its 50th anniversary with a redesigned audio infrastructure built around a Martin Audio MLA platform for control and vocal projection in the challenging environment presented at the site in Alton, Hants. Since the address itself takes the form of a series of speeches, sermons and teachings powerful projection is required. There is no music, it is all about speech intelligibility, and Honywill’s considered redesign was built predominantly around an MLA Mini central cluster.
In the post-pandemic world – and following the cancellation of the scheduled 2020 event – the challenge was to scale down for a socially distanced event without compromising the audio, since instead of the usual 35,000 the gathering would constitute just 4,000. Once again RG Jones, involved in the event for many years, worked under the direction of the Sami Basri (audio visual) team, headed by the National Secretary Audio Visuals UK Safdar Ali and Deputy National Secretary Imran Ali.
‘The problems were that we couldn’t fly the system, the limited floor space and the low height at the sides of the structure, which made it hard to get sufficient elevation on the arrays without encroaching on the floor space,’ Honywill explains.
In conjunction with RG Jones project manager, Jack Bowcher, he undertook a redesign: ‘This time the Men’s marquee was scaled back to 25m x 100m and the Women’s to 20m x 90m,’ Bowcher says. ‘We ground-stacked MLA Mini on MSX subs with DD12s running left and right as repeaters down the length of the room.’
Stacked on 2ft-high Steeldeck, the main arrays were programmed to cover around 30m. Front fill comprised DD12 and DD6, In addition, four pole-mounted MLA Mini, left and right per side, were deployed in the first delay position 30m back from the stage before the DD12s took over.
Fourteen Martin Audio XD12 provided coverage outside the marquees. Further overflow marquees, one either side of the Men’s Mosque, were equipped with DD6s and eight Blackline X8. The Women’s Mosque was also supported by two overflow tents, each housing four further Blackline X8.
‘The DD12 and DD6 functioned superbly as in fill, and by using MLA Mini we could achieve even coverage and ensure as much gain before feedback as necessary,’ Bowcher says. ‘We could also program the system to prevent reflections from the roof and sides.’
Speech intelligibility was aided by carpeting throughout and the rear gable end being draped to prevent slapback from the plastic marquee materials.
‘Our initial reaction was one of apprehension – our thoughts were that the full, evenly distributed sound that we were used to would not be possible,’ says Imran Ali, who production managed, agreed that the event had gone off without compromise despite the challenges due to Covid-19 restrictions. ‘We always have a challenge trying to project the voice of the Khalifa to the participants of the Jalsa, and knew this could be an even bigger challenge.
‘However, from the first day to the last, with each speech that went past, we realised that the PA was not compromised at all; it was highly intelligible, and the controllable nature of the PA allowed each of the participants to hear the message of peace and unity that was being delivered by the Khalifa of Islam Ahmadiyyat.’
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