Just as it had done at the opening extravaganza 16 days earlier the technological infrastructure designed by Auditoria’s Scott Willsallen provided the Fisht Olympic Stadium with the essential media backbone for the closing of the XXII Olympic Winter Games. Featuring nearly 800 performers and representing hundreds of years of Russian history, the event wowed both the 42,500-capacity stadium audience and its massive TV audience.
L’Aquila-based concert touring specialist Agora had won the tender prepared by Audio Scott Willsallen to design the routing topography, including separate networks for broadcast and live. The solution relied on large quantities of energy efficient Optocore R-Series AES-EBU and Madi interfaces from Italian distributors, Audiosales, to add to existing inventory. All the transmission was handled by a 24-node Optocore dual redundant ring and working with two different creative teams to fulfil different objectives.
The network comprised DD32R-FX, DD4MR-FX, X6R-FX and TP, and X6P/X6 AD/DA converters – part of an inventory comprising nearly 50 interfaces. This sophisticated connectivity formed the hub of an audio infrastructure which, in addition to the fibre signal transport, involved custom RF solutions and LAN networking across a coverage area measuring up to 4,200m.
Optocore’s system is uniquely able to matrix a channel count over such large distances, and with its dual redundancy and robustness is completely reliable. The company’s 2.21 protocol, which enabled 2Gbit bandwidth operation, was crucial to meet the requirement of a high channel count and by using all 24 IDs Agora was able to advantage of the maximum capacity of the fibre ring. Deployment of the TP (Twisted Pair) devices provided a Cat5 extension to expand the I/O of the field nodes as required.
Auditoria, with Justin Arthur acting as Senior Systems Engineer, adopted a similar approach to that taken at the London Olympics in 2012, with the addition of the new L-Acoustics K2 system, with Optocore sending AES feeds to 230 of the new enclosures, arranged in different hangs – part of a massive L-Acoustics PA deployment.
The field nodes were all Analogue in/AES out and control nodes were Madi I/O at the FOH console, where Richard Sharratt mixed the sound. Field inputs were passively split into A (Optocore) and B (analogue) networks, with DiGiCo consoles outputting via Madi to Optocore with full analogue back-up.
DiGiCo SD7s at FOH and monitors were duplicated on the B Network, which used DiGiCo SD7B and SD11B broadcast desks. The broadcast ring tied the main system to the OB truck of Delta Media, another Optocore partner, for all necessary I/O and they delivered downstream mixes of playback, live and atmos mics for broadcast of the Ceremonies to OBS (Olympic Broadcast Services), with Andy Rose mixing the broadcast sound.
Agora, under project manager Giulio Rovelli, supplied the equipment and maintenance team and the equally accomplished Auditoria team, which included theatre designer Bobby Aitken as audio consultant, provided the design and operational team: ‘As for the creative teams I try and understand the different needs for each show. Both Andrei Boltenko and Konstantin Ernst were very clear in what they wanted and were straightforward in expressing it. Some of the more complex work had involved providing discreet speaker system for a 21s sound effect to accompany the entrance of a train and mechanical horse, and then for a 7s high-impact sound effect to add theatricality on another occasion. ‘It was this attention to detail that was important,’ he said.
Summing up, Scott Willsallen said that both events technically had more than met expectations: ‘We delivered the Ceremonies as a complete package. It was a good experience all round and support from all the manufacturers has been great. The network is one of those things that if you don’t notice it, then it’s spectacular! The Optocore network did exactly what it was supposed to do.’
See also:
Sports Highlights: The Sochi Olympic Games
