The Zayed Sports Stadium filled to capacity, as thousands turned out for the UAE’s 40th UAE National Day.

The 360° stadium production placed complex demands upon audio contractor Britannia Row Productions, who chose to cover the stadium with eight hangs of L-Acoustics Kudo, SB218, VDosc, D-VDosc, 108XTs, Kiva, Kilo and other distributed speakers. System control fell to 17 Lake LM26 Processors, three Yamaha DME Processors and six XTA Breakout Boxes, and connected over a dual-redundant fibre-optic IP network using Audinate’s Dante networking technology.

The Lake LM26 processors – which were distributed throughout the system – provided crossover, EQ and time alignment using Dante. This proved essential as very high levels of RF interference plaguing the analogue copper connections – the fibre-optic links eliminated the analogue connections between amp racks and avoided the interference. One Yamaha DME 64n was equipped with a Dante-MY16-AUD card and acted as the main system matrix, providing feeds to all Lake LM26s as well EQ and dynamics processing for press feeds, monitoring and audio distribution throughout the venue – including backstage and outside the stadium.

‘Without the use of Dante (audio over IP), the unusual amount of RF interference we experienced, where even short analogue cable runs suffered from induction of local radio, would have made this job next to impossible,’ says Joshua Lloyd, who oversaw the set-up and design of the PA system at the stadium. ‘Without the extreme flexibility that we get with Dante we would have struggled to achieve the fantastic results we did.’

DVS was used on a pair of Apple MacBook Pro computers running Qlab to form a dual redundant playback system via another Yamaha DME64 processor equipped with Dante-MY16-AUD card.

‘Dante provides large channel counts, directly from my workstations,’ says Gavin Tempany, who supervised the media playback system. ‘This also allows me to take up less space in often cramped control areas, and still deliver critical content with confidence’.

The dual-network system performed reliably for the show and the lengthy rehearsal leading up to the event. ‘Dante is completely scalable,’ Tempany adds. ‘The system used nodes for processing, input and output. Ease of configuration and the confidence that Dante will just work, allows for greater concentration on the important aspects of delivering an imaginatively designed, first class audio experience to the audience’.

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