Tremendous Bowl LVIII: For the First Time, Recreation and Halftime Present Will Deploy the Similar Sound System – Sports activities Video Group

By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Friday, February 9, 2024 – 9:59 am
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When Tremendous Bowl LVIII kicks off on Sunday (broadcast on CBS, streamed on Paramount+, Slimed on Nickelodeon), viewers at residence and followers within the stands will hear the sport’s sound by the identical PA system that may amplify eight-time Grammy Award-winner Usher’s halftime efficiency. It’s the primary time the identical quickly put in music PA system can be used because the sound for each the sport’s play and the leisure performances.
ATK Audiotek, acquired by Clair International in 2021, has designed and managed the halftime present’s sound system for 26 years, often rolling onto the sphere a separate music-PA system loaded on eight carts. This devoted system would even be linked to the venue’s put in PA system, which might be used as delay audio system to cowl the higher reaches of seating, changing into an extension of the momentary music system for leisure purposes.
A number of-Grammy winner Usher says he has been getting ready for his Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present second for 30 years.
Final 12 months, nevertheless, the roll-out grass subject at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, AZ, prevented use of the carts: it couldn’t be moved quick sufficient to accommodate the fast change essential to assemble the efficiency stage midfield. For the primary time, then, ATK needed to fly the music system, however it nonetheless adhered to the follow of connecting with the stadium’s current put in sound system for delay audio system.
This 12 months, Allegiant Stadium has the identical type of roll-out subject, once more stopping the usage of audio system on carts. On this case, although, ATK will fly a wholly new momentary L-Acoustics K2 system, and it is going to be used for each the halftime music present and the sport’s bulletins and different sound components.
“We’re flying your entire PA once more, besides this 12 months we’re not augmenting the home system,” says Kirk Powell, engineer in chief, ATK, who’s working his twenty second Tremendous Bowl manufacturing. “Final 12 months, we augmented what already existed; we simply added clusters to the prevailing system. This 12 months, we flew a very separate PA system for the primary time.”
The prevailing home PA, a JBL VLA system, can be accessible for emergency paging wants, he provides.
Implementing the momentary sound system had its personal challenges, due largely to Allegiant Stadium’s roofing, which is fabricated from skinny ETFE materials. “It’s a cable-type ceiling, so that you’re restricted in the place you possibly can put clusters and issues of that nature,” Powell explains, including, “The rigging and cable administration was additionally a problem, as was amplifier placement.”
Within the fourth 12 months of the NFL’s multi-year cope with rap mogul Jay-Z and his Roc Nation manufacturing firm, Usher’s present at Allegiant follows Rihanna’s look at State Farm Stadium; the 2021 present at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa that includes The Weeknd; the 2022 present with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and Eminem; and the 2020 appearances of Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, with visitor appearances by Dangerous Bunny, J Balvin, and Emme Muñiz at Miami Gardens (a present that earned a Primetime Emmy and 4 nominations).
Because the line-ups recommend, the exhibits have supplied for progressively bigger numbers of subwoofers to accommodate the bass-heavy rap and hip-hop genres. That features 16 L-Acoustics K1 extended-low-frequency packing containers and 48 KS28 subs all flown, buttressed by a complement of 16 Clair Cohesion 218 subs on the sphere. They’ll be part of a system comprising 212 K2 packing containers flown from the roof rigging and managed by System Engineer Chris Daniels. Sign distribution can be over a Dante community utilizing Focusrite RedNet D64, D16R, and A16R interfaces. Shure Axient Digital would be the important wireless-microphone system on the sphere, managed by Cameron Stuckey, RF engineer, Skilled Wi-fi Companies.
Though the system is bigger than final 12 months’s, primarily on the low finish, the truth that it should already be in place will assist clean the swap to music for the halftime present. Nevertheless, it nonetheless requires a staff of 100-plus momentary audio-team staff to make the system transitions exact. The staff can be supporting the core ATK staff of Powell, present mixers Alex Guessard and Dave Natale engaged on a pair of DiGiCo Quantum338 consoles, monitor mixer Tom Pesa on an SD5, and game-sound mixer Jack Bowling on the stadium’s put in Yamaha PM3 desk. All are Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present veterans.
The sound system bought its first use at Monday’s Opening Night time occasion on the stadium, Powell says, the place a whole lot of media people interviewed Tremendous Bowl gamers and coaches of their solely public look in Las Vegas earlier than Tremendous Bowl Sunday. It was additionally the one time the 2 groups can be collectively in a single location previous to taking the sphere for the Massive Recreation.
He notes that deployment of the NFL OnePass app will permit followers within the stands to tune into any of the dozen podiums in simultaneous use on the sphere, at the same time as solely one of many podiums at any given time may very well be pumped by the PA system: “That’s only one extra cool means that sound is getting used for the Tremendous Bowl. It’s one other means that followers are engaged.”
And viewers can anticipate a relatively sharp halftime present by a performer who’s in the midst of his second Las Vegas residency, who says he has studied what has turn out to be the final word gig within the ongoing convergence between sports activities and leisure.
“I’ve watched each performer, analyzing how they maximized these 12 minutes,” Usher told Billboard this week, citing Michael Jackson’s 1993 efficiency because the halftime present’s inflection level. “However, you understand, your second is your second. And it is a second I’ve ready for over the last 30 years.”
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