A letter from America

Dan Daley looks at whether or not the weather makes a difference

Thought you could hide out in your snug little techo-universe from the controversy over global warming? Think again. As live events continue to grow in importance – we all have election seasons coming up – and revenue (Donald Trump’s rallies actually show a profit, though in part because he simply fails to pay some vendors), their sheer scale is moving more and more to the outdoors or into uncovered stadiums. And it’s no fun being at the mercy of the weather when the weather is becoming increasingly merciless.

This has been going on for a while now, and sports venues and their AV systems have already been feeling the effects. Back in 2016, for instance, US Bank Stadium, the home of the Minnesota Vikings and host of the 2018 Super Bowl, had some of its exterior zinc panels start to peel away due to extreme weather. Eventually, one panel was ripped away entirely by high winds from the roof of an NFL stadium that was designed specifically for the region’s harsh winter climate, engineered to reduce snow and ice buildup. Repairing it required an additional 4,000 fasteners and took the better part of a year.

Weather has become far more treacherous in recent years. The 2011 Indiana State Fair disaster, in which seven were killed and 58 injured when high winds collapsed the stage during the band Sugarland’s set, has been the dark gold standard against which both the event production industry and increasingly volatile weather have become measured. But while safety for people is always of paramount importance, once that’s been addressed – and the Event Safety Alliance has done a lot of great work in that regard – the ability to keep the mechanics of live events protected has become of increased importance as a result of these sorts of incidents.

Some systems manufacturers have been addressing inclement meteorological conditions for a number of years now, weatherising outer coverings and exposed elements of speaker cabinets. In recent years, though, a few have become more forthright about how climate change may be accelerating how weather affects outdoor sound system installations. Bose Professional, for instance, emphasises that its relatively new ArenaMatch series, which had its first sports venue installation at the 35,000-capacity Philips Stadium in Eindhoven, Netherlands in January, achieves an IP55 weather rating via features that include a three-layer stainless steel grille, a water-resistant woofer cone coating, industrial polyurea exterior coating and a moulded input cover. ‘We’ve had water-resistant products in the past, but it’s definitely been getting wetter out there,’ Aaron Niemann, mid-Atlantic territory sales manager at Bose Professional, informed me.

‘Integrators that work on outdoor sports venues have been telling us that they want [speaker] boxes that can stand up to the elements as they become more intense.’ Rodger Von Kries, VP at Technomad, which offers lines of IP56 weatherproof speakers and waterproof sports PA systems, as well as IP66 waterproof outdoor amplifiers, said at the Infocomm Show in 2019: ‘There’s no doubt that the demand is growing for weather-resistant and weatherproof sound systems and [related] elements. The market for that kind of product just keeps growing.’

Danley Sound Labs is a standard for outdoor point source PA systems in college and NFL stadiums, and its speaker boxes use a number of weather-resistant properties, such as IP-rated wood and moulded plastic coverings.

‘Those kinds of venues have another thing that can really eat away at sound systems: salt,’ explains Mike Hedden, Danley’s president. ‘The more snow and ice you get, the more salt finds its way into the venue and onto the systems.’ The discussions around climate change continue to be contentious, but as the wind and the rain and the snow continue to pound on the fields and the roofs, the makers of the sound and video systems that have helped define this generation of live event environments are starting to take a closer look at how to keep those systems intact and working.

A letter from Europe

Phil Ward considers whether keeping quiet is the best policy

Sometimes toy just have to keep quiet. Both sides of Europe are right now marking 30 years since what the Germans call the ‘Mauerfall’ – the fall of the Berlin Wall – both literally and in the political imagination. And if you’ve ever wondered how small, individual decisions by modest people are connected to sweeping world history, this is a perfect example.

On the night of 9 November 1989, Stasi Lieutenant Colonel Harald Jäger was on duty at the Bornholmer Straße checkpoint in the north of Berlin. Disgruntled with his life and faced with thousands of clamouring East Berliners who had heard (wrongly) that the borders were now open, he repeatedly phoned his superior officers for advice. When one of them insulted his bravery in a conference call, unaware that Jäger was listening, the lieutenant colonel decided to say nothing and resolved, there and then, to open the border in defiance. He could not have known the enormity of that decision.

Romania is one of the many countries to have been affected by the changes in Eastern Europe that, while evolving over many more years before, seemed to be encapsulated in that single night of breaking point for one individual and an entire regime. So much so, capital Bucharest even has its own Hard Rock Café. I know, freedom brings many responsibilities. And a good deal of polyunsaturated fat.

And here, in Bucharest, we find another tale of how to let sleeping dogs lie. During the process of upgrading the Hard Rock Café’s audio system – a mouth-watering combination of Powersoft zoning and amplification and 23 Martin Audio loudspeakers – the consultant insisted on individual control of all 23 speakers so that every single table could, in theory, decide its own acoustic experience. This necessitated not one but three of Powersoft’s prestigious Ottocanali 4K4 eight-channel zoning amplifiers in the inventory, thank you very much.

As you might imagine, installer Marius Craiu of Constanta-based AudioVision was delighted – not least because the generous payload of top-grade Italian amps was effectively superfluous to requirements. The Martin Audio speakers arranged throughout the restaurant are over 3m above the burgerconsuming covers, such that every table receives the output of at least three of them at the same time. To control them individually makes no difference whatsoever.

Did Marius point out this discrepancy, thereby reducing his invoice by two-thirds? I’ll leave you to decide whether he did or not, any more so than the Britannia Row LD who could have explained to a major pop star that the moody solo spot effect he so loved during one particular number was not, actually, deliberate: the generator had failed and all the lights but one had gone out. In truth, the whole atmospheric tableau was a complete accident. At least, as far as Marius is concerned, he now has a favourite consultant in Romania that he hopes will be involved in as many projects as possible. And the LD in question from Britannia Row has gone on to enjoy many more successful tours with this particular artist.

It’s doubtful whether any walls will crumble or governing ideologies will fall as a result of a Hard Rock Café paying over the odds for zoning, or a singer giving credit where it wasn’t due for a creative production decision. But it does prove a couple of things: firstly, audio is way more critical than it’s often assumed, because if the PA had failed in a similar way during that infamous song there most certainly would not have been a congratulatory slap on the back for the FOH engineer; and secondly, whether it’s border patrols or burger joints, you’re not nearly in as much control as you think you are.