Better city better life better sound
Published: ASIA
Expo 2010 Shanghai is the biggest World Expo ever, and the world’s audio manufacturers are scrambling to celebrate their involvement, as Barney Jameson discovers
In 2008 it was impossible to miss the enormity of the Beijing Olympics, with the entire world looking on in awe as the Chinese hosts poured resources, passion and expertise into an event so impressive that talk quickly turned to how the next host nation, the UK, could possibly meet the benchmark that had been set. This year, the 2010 World Expo – trumpeting its arrival with the slogan ‘Better City, Better Life’ - is creating similarly huge waves of excitement within China itself. Internationally, however, the public response has been quieter.
The reason? In an internet-driven era where even specialist trade shows are coming under increased scrutiny in favour of the publicity-power of the web, it’s easy to look at the concept of a World Exposition and decide that it belongs to a past age. After all, the original World Expo – the British Great Exhibition of 1851 – was conceived as a vehicle for displaying the varied manufactured goods of the then British Empire – a concept that seems archaic in the modern world.
But the sheer enormity of Expo 2010 Shanghai is an indication that this Exposition has more in common with the New York World’s Fair of 1939, the year that America proved its Economic presence on the world stage. For China, the Olympics were its coming out party as a global economic powerhouse – the 2010 World Expo is its entrance proper on to the modern global stage, affirming Shanghai’s position as the next great city.
And ‘enormous’ is the only word that does justice to the scale of Expo 2010, with its record breaking 5.28 sq-km site straddling the Huangpu river, drawing in more than 190 participating countries alongside a further 50 international organisations. The US$50 billion spent on staging the six month event dwarfs the US$44 billion that was devoted to the Olympics, while as many as 100 million visitors – most of them Chinese – are expected to flock to the myriad pavilions and attractions awaiting within. It is a palpable demonstration of China’s economic and political power, with participating nations having gone on the record as saying that not being there would be ludicrous given the swelling influence of the Chinese state.
Nor are the world’s governments alone in courting the event – companies from a wealth of industries have launched themselves at the 2010 Expo with the kind of enthusiasm that only comes of dealing with an emergent world power. The audio industry is no exception.
It is, however, virtually impossible to do justice to all of the work that has been done by audio professionals in the design and implementation of an event so vast. Instead, only snapshots of the projects that have been undertaken as part of the Expo are possible, focusing not on the whole, but on the parts of the event that will remain standing at its close. Of the hundreds of pavilions and attractions that await visitors to Shanghai, only five will remain in place when the Expo closes in October. They are the Theme Pavilions complex, the Expo Centre, the huge, towering China Pavilion, the Expo Boulevard, and arguably the most important of all, the strikingly UFO-like, multi-purpose arena named the Culture Centre.
Viewed from the Huangpu River, it hovers over the water’s edge like a gargantuan seashell, while from the air, it presents the quasi-ovoid shape of an egg morphing into a guitar pick. From any angle, its bold architecture commands attention with asymmetrical curves and an otherworldly flair. The inside is similarly imposing, if more conventional. Under a swooping roof, the structure enfolds a world class venue for sport, live music, festivals or any other large-scale events that require seating for up to 18,000.
Designed by Shanghai Xian Di Architectural Group, the arena is a joint development of China’s Oriental Pearl Group, AEG, and America’s National Basketball Association. However, it won’t be named the Culture Centre for long. For the 184-day run of the Expo, the Culture Centre will host twice daily performances focusing on Chinese culture, with weekends left open for special performances by touring acts – chiefly Asian-based pop and rock groups. During this period, operations in the main venue are under the umbrella of the Shanghai Media and Entertainment Group.
But as of January 2011, it will become the Mercedes Benz Arena – the first major venue outside of Germany to bear the famed automaker’s moniker. All operations at that point will be assumed by the worldwide sports and entertainment leviathan AEG, based in Los Angeles. It’s just another example of how the 2010 Expo is set to change Shanghai, and China itself. But if Mercedes Benz is feeling good about its new penetration into the Chinese market, then so is another global brand whose presence in the arena will likely become a showcase for years to come – Harman Professional.
Under the dome
Like the Expo itself, the Culture Centre takes aim at superlatives. The term “multi-purpose venue” might be over-used these days, but the arena makes a strong case for its claim to be the largest of its kind in China. In terms of sheer size, the sleek structural shell encloses 126,000-sq-m of total floor space on six levels. Built at a cost of more than 1.1 billion yuan (US$148.6 million), excluding land value, the complex also houses a six-screen cinema, a public ice skating rink, a 20,000-sq-m mixed-use retail space, a Mercedes-Benz dealership, and a live music club.
If that sounds like a herculean task for any systems integrator, then tip your hat towards Hong Kong’s ACE International, whose Shanghai operations division was responsible for the lion’s share of audio design and installation. As with kindred arenas around the world, the Culture Centre does not offer its own full-blown permanent concert system, with sightline restrictions for sporting events making a fixed installation virtually impossible. While a concert system is in place for the duration of the Expo, the permanent design will be all that remains as of November 1st. Although it would hold its own against concert systems of an earlier era, the permanent system here is designed primarily for sporting events or other activities requiring highly intelligible speech reproduction and good full-range sound for incidental music and video soundtracks.
‘The original technical brief for the audio system was developed in consultation with AEG,’ explains Ben Lui, ACE’s assistant general manager, project division. ‘They clearly wanted a system with performance specifications that would meet or exceed those of other AEG-managed arenas worldwide.’
Prior to construction, the arena’s development partners assigned overall responsibility for technical facilities to the Shanghai Media and Entertainment Group (SMEG). ACE then responded to SMEG’s request for proposals, and was awarded the fixed installation contract.
At the loudspeaker end of the chain, the main distributed ring system comprises a total of 54 JBL PD5000 Series Precision Directivity cabinets. The specific models deployed are the PD5200/43 mid-high loudspeaker, the PD5212/43 full-range loudspeaker, and the PD5125 low-mid loudspeaker. The ‘43’ suffix indicates a 40°x30° horn pattern which allows precision spotlighting of coverage from the overhead clusters. The main bowl system is zoned into six groups, with four side groups each utilising six PD5212s augmented in lower registers by two 5125 units, and two opposing middle groups, each with nine PD5200s bolstered by two 5125 cabinets.
‘Even though the acoustics are quite good, an 18,000-seat arena has considerable internal volume,’ observes Mr Lui. ‘Directivity is critical for maintaining a high direct to reverberant ratio, which makes the PD series a very good choice for this application.’
The above systems are already in place, but an additional sub-system – for the main floor monitoring – awaits later installation as it is not needed during the Expo. Ready for positioning on the retractable video scoreboard are six more PD5212/43 loudspeakers and a single, broad coverage (60°x40°) PD5212/64.
One Amp (Model) Does All
The permanent system is driven by six corresponding groups of Crown I-Tech HD Series 5000HD amplifiers - 35 in total. ‘The I-Tech HD Series was specified here because it gives us both the AES3 digital and analogue inputs as standard for full signal redundancy,’ states Gar Lap Tsoi, a project manager for ACE. ‘The 5000HD, though the smallest in the line, still has ample power – with 2500-Watts into four ohms – for all the speakers in the PD5200 Series.’
Backing up to the start of the signal chain, various audio sources in the arena bowl can be connected into either of two main stage boxes, each with 48 analogue in and 16 analogue out, plus eight each AES3 digital in and out. A third box in the audio control room offers a 16/32 analogue I/O configuration plus 16 AES3 I/O capability. A fourth box, in the amplifier room, provides 16 each analogue and AES3 outputs. All four boxes are interconnected by a dedicated digital fibre optic link, with additional AES3 connections between the control room and amplifier room boxes.
In the control room, all input sources are routed as needed into a Soundcraft Vi4 digital mixing console, which has facilities for 48 mono inputs and up to 27 outputs. As configured for the Culture Centre, all outputs remain in the digital domain, connected by AES3 links to the six BSS Audio Soundweb London BLU-160 units in the amplifier room. Here, in addition to analogue and AES3, the processors are linked by BSS Audio’s propriety high-speed BLU-Link digital audio bus, carried on standard Cat5e network cabling. The network cabling also facilitates implementation of Harman Pro’s HiQNet network for comprehensive monitoring and control of the entire system.
According to ACE’s Gar Lap Tsoi, the flexible input options offered by the Soundcraft mixer, the BSS London signal processors and the Crown I-Tech HD amplifiers were critical to meeting the quality and reliability benchmarks. ‘Perhaps the biggest challenge in the design is to avoid multiple AD/DA conversion processes, so we could minimise the resulting losses,’ he maintains. ‘With the Harman Pro products, we are able to maintain the signal in the digital domain from the source through to the amplifiers.’
A Shanghai Summer System
But the sporting system will have to wait until late autumn, at the earliest. For the six month run of the Expo, the Culture Centre will rely exclusively on a touring-style concert system now in extended residence. This system was also supplied by ACE, although indirectly, as it was purchased from the company some time ago by the current owners, SMEG’s own rental division.
The Expo-season concert system is designed to cover one of the smaller audience-area options allowed by the Culture Centre’s unique, reconfigurable staging and seating system. The arena can be tailored to suit any type of act or event, with audience seating capacities ranging – through three intermediate levels – from 5,000 to the full 18,000. Staging elements and seating blocks morph through three dimensions, rising and falling, rotating and shifting as needed. For the Expo’s frequent show schedule, the staging was set for a seating limit of about 6,000 to maintain a sense of intimacy.
The all-JBL loudspeaker system covers one end of the bowl with four hangs of 16-each Vertec VT4889 full-range line array elements. Deep bass frequencies are augmented by ground-stacked (and camouflaged for performance) VT4880 subwoofers, and side corner fill is supplied by a quartet of JBL PRX512M powered loudspeakers. On stage, a dozen SRX712M boxes provide foldback in conjunction with mini-stacks of VRX932LAP powered line array loudspeakers.
Power is supplied by Crown amplifiers, with 64 MA5002VZ assigned to the flown Vertecs, 10 IT6000 driving the subwoofers, and 10 MA2402s for the non-powered stage monitors. Drive processing is supplied by six dbx 4800 and four veteran dbx 480 loudspeaker management systems. Finally, following the Harman Pro family tree to FOH, audio mixing facilities are courtesy of dual (primary and auxiliary) Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles. Each offers 64 mono inputs and up to 35 outputs as well as fibre-optic links to the stage boxes.
‘We have the capability to tie a touring concert system into the permanent system, if necessary,’ notes ACE’s Ben Lui. ‘In some situations, this could extend the coverage of the temporary system, particularly in the upper bowl. But the Expo system covers all the available seating areas, so that won’t be necessary. The permanent system serves only as an emergency backup, and we don’t anticipate any need to use it in that capacity.’
Down to the nightclub
As yet unnamed but likely to draw just as much attention to the arena as concerts and sporting events is the 600-seat nightclub and music venue which sits as part of the wider complex. The music program is expected to vary widely, with live music and DJs from the Shanghai area as well as touring artists.
Again, ACE was charged with designing and supplying the venue’s sound, which itself proved challenging given the unusual shape of the space – the club is considerably wider than it is deep. With no need for long-throw power, ACE instead opted for the wide coverage of JBL’s VRX932LAP powered line array system. Five of the two-way mid-high cabinets are flown per side, with visceral sub-bass support provided by three-per-side VRX918SP powered subwoofers.
‘The VRX line array was a perfect match for this room,’ explains Ben Lui. ‘The cabinets are very compact, which made it easy to fly them out of sight lines. But they can still generate very high SPLs, and with excellent quality. Also, using powered speakers made the cable runs much simpler.’
The self-powered theme carries over into two of the fold-back speakers (PRX512M), with the balance of the stage monitor complement being six MRX512M wedges powered by a trio of Crown CDi2000 amplifiers.
At the audio mix position is another Soundcraft digital board - a compact Si2, with 48 inputs mapped to 24 faders. For analogue fans who like all the channel faders under their fingers at once, the club also provides a 40-channel Soundcraft MH2 which can be employed as an alternate FOH mix console or as a dedicated monitor board.
World expositions are notorious for putting construction on a high-pressure fast track, and Shanghai’s 2010 Expo was no exception. While Chinese firms are used to mounting ambitious construction projects and completing them in a startling timeframe, the Culture Centre’s development was still impressive. The elaborate saucer was the last of the five permanent structures to start construction, with ground broken only in the waning days of 2007. Yet everything was completed on schedule, with all audio systems in place (except for, of course, the under-scoreboard speakers) and fully commissioned well before the May 1st opening deadline. The success of the project is a tribute to ACE, a fact not lost on its team.
‘This project was a significant accomplishment for the ACE companies,’ comments Ben Lui. ‘It demonstrated an outstanding effort on the part of everyone at our Shanghai division. In particular, congratulations are in order for Xiang Jue, the general manager and project chief; Wu Xiao Lu, chief engineer; Pan Gui Hua, assistant chief engineer; and Zhou You Xun, the site manager.’
The real accolade however will be the ongoing success of an arena that has far more significance to China’s ongoing rise in the world than a mere concert venue. With Expo 2010 Shanghai arguably already proving itself to be not only the biggest Expo in decades, but also the most significant, the Culture Centre is likely to become a lasting symbol of this crucial moment in China’s emergence.
It’s significant for both ACE and Harman Professional therefore that it’s already garnering praise for the role it is playing. ‘The Expo sponsored a full rehearsal the week before opening, and many important dignitaries were in attendance,’ explain Mr Lui. ‘We’ve had some early feedback from officials, including some from the central government, and the comments received were very good.’
Elsewhere in the Expo
Expo 2010 Shanghai is so vast that news of the various audio installations located within the on-site pavilions is only now beginning to emerge following the official opening on May 1st. But while Pro Audio Asia will continue to bring news of the work that has gone on behind the scenes of the biggest Exposition in history, some companies are already proudly trumpeting their involvement.
Among them is the German loudspeaker manufacturer Fohhn Audio, whose products have been installed into no less than three major state Pavilions in the shape of the German, Swiss and China State Grid areas. According to the manufacturer, ‘hundreds of speakers have been shipped to China, installed and finely tuned by Fohhn engineers’.
An impressive example is the 4,000-sq-m Swiss Pavilion, which focuses on ‘rural-urban interaction’ by inviting visitors to travel via chairlift between the Pavilion’s urban-styled heart and an undulating planted roof area. Fohhn loudspeakers, amplifiers and DSP can be found throughout the installation – some boasting a specially developed weatherproofing technology - with all components networked together enabling central control and monitoring.
Also measuring 4,000-sq-m is the China State Grid Pavilion, which has been nicknamed the Magic Box. Inside its 16x16x16 Cubic Theatre, which functions as a 720° cinema space with six LED screens covering the walls, ceiling and floor, visitors can find Fohhn’s award-winning Linea Focus technology providing coverage. They’ll have to look closely however, as the loudspeakers have been carefully integrated into the LED wall space, with 22 Linea Focus boxes targeting sound at specific locations in the room to create a ‘3D soundscape’.
The importance of participating in the Shanghai Expo in such an innovative fashion is something for the manufacturer to shout about, and executive director of sales and marketing Uli Haug is quick to oblige, declaring that ‘it has been wonderful to see these three projects come to fruition. Fohhn has been providing support for the sound design teams during the planning stages and our engineers have been in Shanghai to set up and tune the installed systems. Expo 2010 is an excellent opportunity for Fohhn to showcase its full range.’
The biggest showcase of the three however is the German Pavilion. Named “balancity”, it is Germany’s biggest ever installation at an Expo, covering 6,000-sq-m and promising to take visitors on a ‘guided walking tour of the pavilion “city”, moving through 13 different areas including a harbour, parks and the city's power plant. Providing a ‘perfectly balanced acoustic environment’ for the tour are over 300 Fohhn products, including a range of Arc Series loudspeakers and the manufacturer’s DSP control technology.
The Pavilion's Energy Source Room is described as the tour’s highlight , offering more than 600 visitors the chance to use sound and movement to set in motion a giant sphere measuring over three metres in diameter and weighing over a ton. ‘The architectural design of this room presented a potential challenge for hanging and positioning the vast number of speakers needed to deliver its complex sound requirements,’ explained Mr Haug. ‘However, the low weight and compact design of the systems has enabled them to integrate into the different settings and to be hung in large quantities without causing structural damage.’
Another manufacturer making its presence felt in the German Pavilion is Sennheiser, an official sponsor, whose HD800 headphones feature within as an example of German engineering expertise.
The manufacturer also recently added its support to the official launch of the “Balancity” area, which was attended by Dietmar Schmitz, Germany's Expo commissioner general, and Dr Albrecht von der Heyden, Germany’s consul-general in Shanghai, among others. Deployed for the press conference were microphones including MD 421 wired models, G3 100 and 300 wireless series mics, and 2000 series models. Italian loudspeaker brand K-Array supplied sound reinforcement.
Meanwhile, dBTechnologies has been hard at work in the 3,000-sq-m Venezuela area, deploying a ‘powerful yet small system’ in the shape of the company’s DVA line array for the figure-of-eight-styled Pavilion’s theatre. The array comprises 12 flown T4 full range cabinets arrayed six on each side within the theatre’s arc-shaped ceiling, two ground-stacked S10 powered subwoofers fitted with onboard SDD delay modules, a pair of dBTechnologies Arena 15 passive cabinets to support the centre sound and a DSX 2040 controller.
‘The DVA was ideal for the Venezuela Pavilion theatre,’ explains Shelly Xiao, general manager of regional distributor Sharp Dragon, who supplied the system. ‘The digital self powered line array fitted the bill perfectly – it’s lightweight, not too obtrusive and it sounds excellent.’ The general manager of installation firm Baokun Electronic Technology agrees, describing the line array as ‘fitting into the shape of the theatre beautifully. The clear and full sound of the system brought the place to life.’
Finally, Salzbrenner Stagetec Mediagroup is celebrating a very high profile introduction to the Chinese market for its Nexus and CAS 300 systems, with an installation in the Zhejiang Pavilion marking the first time the systems have been used in the country. Intended for public address, stage-management and as a central control system, the installation comprises static, wired subscriber units and wireless modules plus an integrated solid-state digital audio player with pre-recorded announcements.
‘With the help of our phone support during the basic configuration process, the local team had the system up and running in just three hours,’ enthused the product engineer in charge, Reinhold Friedrich. The Mediagroup has long worked to strengthen its Chinese and Asian presence, currently maintaining offices in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.
Outside the Expo
Strategically located beside the Huangpu river in the Yangpu district and sitting next to an official Expo 2010 dock is the Nordic Lighthouse, a three storey converted warehouse that has seen Nordic countries including Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland collaborate to bring Nordic products and culture to the Chinese people.
Lit up like a beacon to reflect its name, the Nordic Lighthouse is not officially a part of Expo 2010 due to the participating countries wishing to bring more of a commercial angle to their presence at the event. It is nevertheless partnered with the Exposition, with transport running directly to and from the Lighthouse to the official Pavilions. With its first floor devoted to a Nordic lifestyle exhibition and its second and third floors reserved for meetings, conferences and exhibitions, it is a powerful reminder that the influence of Expo 2010 Shanghai extends far beyond the official site.
Like the official Pavilions themselves, it also represents a unique window for audio companies to penetrate further into the Chinese market, and in this case it is DPA Microphones who has seized the opportunity. The Danish manufacturer has supplied two models of microphone for use in the Lighthouse – the DPA 4023 compact cardioid mic configured in a floor-standing solution, and the DPA 4028 wide cardioid models, which are designed for table mounting.
‘With the Little Mermaid on display in Shanghai, and the fact that all our design and manufacturing processes are done in Denmark, we were happy to supply Nordic Lighthouse with microphone solutions from our Compact range,’ explained DPA’s regional sales director Ken Kimura.