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A Swarm of Butterflies at the City of Manchester Stadium
The match for the world boxing championship, in front of an audience of 55,000 (which also included Mike Tyson, in a front-row seat), was amplified by Butterfly, the line array by Outline of Brescia (Italy). The contestants were Mexico's Juan Lazcano and England's Ricky Hatton (the latter won, thus retaining his IBO light-welterweight title).
The venue hosting the prestigious event was the City of Manchester Stadium, the largest soccer pitch in England. As well as soccer matches, the stadium also hosts top concerts since, with its 107 x 71 metre for 60,000 spectators, it has one of the largest capacities.
For sound reinforcement Britannia Row technicians - system engineer Davide Lombardi and FOH engineer Derrick Zieba - set up eight clusters with 12 Butterfly Hi-Packs each, for a total of 96 modules; the bottom end was courtesy of eight Subtech 218, flown in four clusters of two subs each. The PWM power amps were also Outline - T9 (2 x 4800W), a single rack unit and twelve kilos each.
As well as the MC's voice and the contributions from Sky digital TV (music and publicity), there was also a performance by classical singer Russell Watson.
On the subject of the Outline line array, the event's FOH engineer Derrick Zieba commented: "The Outline system performed perfectly in the stadium situation. There was enough power to overcome the noise from the huge crowd of enthusiastic Ricky Hatton fans without problems. The Outline Butterfly's projection enabled us to turn off the in-house coverage on the end stands and just use the Outline hangs from the centre stand. The boxes proved easy to rig and their small format ensured Sky TV clear shots of the ring. These small powerful boxes provided the best solution to ensure perfect sound for this unusually large boxing match audience."
It is also worth noting that for the audio no more than seven tons could be flown. The remarkable lightness of the Outline arrays was therefore once more a winning factor.
4th June 2008
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