Back to the Future, a Technology Project Review: Outdoor Sound Reinforcement of Symphony and Opera for Extremely Large Audiences

摘要

Serving audiences of up to 200,000 persons for outdoor performances of classical operatic and symphonic program material, a fully-distributed portable sound reinforcement system was deployed in public parks throughout the greater New York City metropolitan area, including the Great Lawn at Central Park. Supporting natural onstage sound from a tensile-membrane acoustical shell designed in a 36m (118 ft.) wide and 21m (68 ft.) high pyramid-like structure for the US $3.385M portable outdoor music pavilion, 24 battery-powered, digitally-delayed portable loudspeaker towers received wireless signal transmissions from a centrally-located mixing position to cover various asymmetrical audience areas. A 24m (78 ft.) wide stage area was served with only nine primary microphones. From 1991-95, the author led a field team to deploy and operate this futuristic outdoor sound reinforcement system, which pioneered innovative and advanced technologies now taken for granted by professional live sound practitioners. System design attributes and operating principles are detailed.