Renowned as the most visited ice show in the world, Holiday on Ice is an ever-evolving visual spectacular with a 70-year history. Most recently, ittook to the road for a three-month tour of Europe. Production company Stage Entertainment called on Focus Advanced Event Technology (part of the Netherlands’ Rent-All Group) to provide a full technical package for the tour, including an L-Acoustics ARCS Wide and ARCS Focus loudspeaker system.
The sound system was designed by Jeroen ten Brinke, arguably Dutch theatre’s best-known sound designer, having been involved in large-scale theatre productions and European partner for international sound design group, ADI.
‘The position of the lighting rig changes from time to time and, as a result, the position of the audio grid can also change,’ he says. ‘We needed to have a system that could cope with this and the ARCS Wide and Focus solution offers us maximum flexibility. Additionally, the very accurate dispersion helped us to aim the system to avoid reflections from the ice floor.
‘Truck space was also at a premium, so the more compact size was an additional advantage, as is the fact that ARCS Wide and Focus are passive loudspeakers, so each cabinet has its own amplification channel, allowing us to easily adjust levels and hi shelves.’
The main system comprises ten clusters of 12 ARC Focus plus one ARCS Wide, with two stacks of four SB28 subs positioned left and right. Front fill for the VIP area comprises nine L-Acoustics ultra-compact coaxial 5XT cabinets, with six 115XT HiQ providing monitoring on stage. The system is driven by LA8 amplifiers, housed in five L-Acoustics LA-Rak modular touring racks.
‘The bottom Focus faces almost straight down, with the Wide closest to the audience, while the top two Focus cabinets have the most distance to overcome,’ explains ten Brinke.
Focus Advanced Event Technology designed and manufactured custom dollies for the tour, which means the loudspeaker clusters are hung in exactly the right position to be flown at each venue, further aiding the fast set up of the system. Having worked with it for several months, ten Brinke feels he has chosen the best possible solution: ‘The system is light, quick to set up and compact. And I believe it has the highest possible SPL to budget ratio in the world.’
More: www.l-acoustics.com
