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Adamson at German National Press Association's Annual Ball

$Adamson at German National Press Association\'s Annual Ball$

The end of the year is a busy time for corporate events organizers. One of the largest and most prestigious holiday season celebrations in Germany, The National Press Association's annual ball (Bundespresseball 2009), took place at the Inter Continental Hotel in Berlin. The 2,500 strong event guest list featured the upper tier of the Germany's politicians & cabinet ministers, media and corporate personalities, all headed by Horst Köhler, Germany's President and official Head of State.

The Intercontinental hotel was completely transformed by a large team of builders, artists, and technical designers taking 5,600 man hours to complete. Decorative structures were supplied by Deco Sun. L&S GmbH & Co. KG, Hupfer Beschallungstechnik, and Darkselection GmbH & Co. KG all whom own Adamson inventory, came together to provide complete sound production, Kaluza&Schmid GmbH managed the event, and PAM Events GmbH, Jands , LichtBlick Bühnentechnik GmbH provided all lighting. A discreet sound design was created for four separate stages and was executed by Adamson Europe GmbH applications specialist David Dohrmann, whose Shooter 2.7.1 designs provided a fully accurate picture of the final result. Dohrmann also oversaw the setup and tuned and time aligned the systems.

Four separate areas needed sound designs, and between them speeches and various musical styles from a classical String Quartet, a Big Band, Rock Bands and DJ's had to be accommodated. The organisers had a strict corporate design in mind; the promoter and design agency wanted the sound system to be completely camouflaged or hidden away, yet there was a need for a powerful PA system which was requested on the various artists' technical riders. BAP, Stefanie Heinzmann, Andrej Hermlin and his Swing Dance Orchestra headlined the event.

The main stage had a unique design at 12m (40ft) deep it featured three different elevations from 0.6m (2ft), to 1.5m (5ft) and 2.5m (8.2 ft). It would have to support a classic 30´s Big Band playing in the back with vocalists in the foreground, and a rock band who'd play in the front of this stage. These two bands would alternate right through the evening, and at midnight, an Italian raffle ‘Tombola' would require accurate and evenly distributed speech reinforcement throughout.
The Big Band leader, Andrej Hermlin, had initially a puritanical approach to sound - completely refusing the use of sound reinforcement, but was later convinced otherwise with the sophisticated design. The main stage set-up consisted of two Adamson SpekTrix cabinets with two SpekTrix W 15 degree under hangs per side firing front and flown off the truss L & R of the stage. Due to the design of the hall, both sides of the stage had large wings off the dance floor, therefore side fills consisting of Metrix 5 and 15 degree cabinets were hung on a 100+ degree angle beside the main arrays, a single flown Point 8 center fill was added, and finally two Spektrix Subs per side were hidden into the stage structure in an end-firing cardioid configuration. The monitor rig used on the main stage was a full Adamson lineup, lead by eight M15's, one M215, one M12, and two 10MX's.

By delaying the natural sounding Adamson system, an image of a barely there PA was created. The result was an even Big Band sound in the entire venue. During the demonstration to the band leader, the sound team hit the "mute" button for comparison, and as the image collapsed making the Big Band sound dull and inaudible especially in the back of the venue, the leader was won over. For the tombola, the excellent long throw capabilities of the full system provided crystal clear speech intelligibility throughout. For the rock band a very dynamic system sound with a lot of headroom was achieved with the addition of Adamson SpekTrix Subs to the mix.

The FOH engineers Achim Schnall (BAP), Ingo Thuerauf (Stefanie Heinzmann), Pieter Stellingwerff (Andrej Hermlin and his Swing Dance Orchestra) were kept happy, and as for the nice appearance of the Metrix and SpekTrix cabinets, even the promoter and design agency had only the best words for the discreet Adamson PA system. Some of the crew members, who were new to the Adamson Systems, were astounded by the easy setup and fantastic sound.

The B stage ground stacked rig featured four Metrix per side placed on 2 Spektrix Subs and a single Metrix Sub, with 2 point 8's as a side PA. Six 10MX monitors were used on stage. Amplification for the set-ups on all stages was trusted to Lab.gruppen, and all processing was provided by XTA. The FOH consoles preferred by the FOH Engineers were a Digico SD8, and a Soundcraft MH3. At monitors two Yamaha M7CL consoles were used.

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Adamson at German National Press Association's Annual Ball

15th January 2010

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