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Grand Slam for 3db and Van Damme
Owned and organized by Dubai Duty Free, the Dubai Tennis Championships is held under the patronage of HH General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Minster of Defence, UAE. With stars such as Roger Federer and Andre Agassi lined up to play, the focus of the world’s press was on the event, making it imperative that the PA system on the club’s center court worked perfectly.
“The most difficult challenge we faced was the length of cable runs involved,” says 3db director Eddie Mulrainey. “The Umpire’s chair was 200 metres away from the control room and we also had to install over 100 metres of high quality speaker cable to ensure that the quality of the audio signal didn’t suffer because of the distances we had to deal with.”
For this project, 3db chose a selection of Van Damme cables, supplied by London-based cabling specialists, VDC Trading. These included Van Damme Classic UP SPOFC microphone cable, Van Damme multicore cable, VDC Amphenol AP5 Speaker multicores, VDC 19" Rack Mount Mains panels and VDC stage boxes for signal distribution.
“With this installation, it was imperative that we used the right cabling, so we opted for the best product on the market,” Mulrainey adds. “Van Damme gave us the quality we needed and was also sufficiently durable to withstand Dubai’s hot weather.
“Since we started the company we have relied on VDC for our entire cabling infrastructure because the company offers a very extensive range of solutions and is incredibly helpful if we ever need a customised approach to a problem. Its products give us the flexibility to tackle all types of tricky situations - and believe me, when you’re working in the Gulf, challenging situations are something you learn to expect.”
At least there was one challenge the company didn’t have to tackle this time, and that was the public relations stunt used to promote the championship which involved Federer playing Agassi on a helipad on top of the famous Burj Al Arab hotel.
“A hotel rooftop must be one of the most unusual venues ever chosen for a tennis match and it certainly drew plenty of attention to the Championship,” says Mulrainey. “However, we were just grateful that we didn’t have to run a cable from the roof to the tennis club – that would have been stretching the bound of credibility a little too far!”
Based in Dubai, 3db was established three years ago by Mulrainey and co-director Mike Snape, in partnership with Manchester-based Wigwam Acoustics, one of the UK’s foremost companies for the hire and sales of professional audio equipment and systems. 3db offers a comprehensive events service for indoor or outdoor venues, providing all necessary equipment sound, lighting and staging. Its clients include corporate event planners and concert promoters throughout the Middle East.
21st March 2005
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