Raja Bhoj celebration sees largest sound system in Madhya Pradesh
Published: ASIA
INDIA: The largest sound system yet to be deployed in the Madhya Pradesh area of India was recently used for a ceremony commemorating the millennium year of Raja Bhoj, the famous Indian mediaeval king and folk hero. Included within the rig was EAW reinforcement, JBL monitoring and five different mixing consoles from Avid, Yamaha and Soundcraft.
Supplied by Indore-based events specialist Durgesh Sound & Light Systems Pvt Ltd, which handled the majority of the technical production, the system was used as part of a comprehensive A/V system for the event, named Raja Bhoj Rajyarohan Sahastrabdi Samaroha. The ceremony – organised by the Cultural Ministry and the Cultural Directorate of Madhya Pradesh – occurred at the Lal Parade Ground in Bhopal on February 28th, drawing an estimated crowd of 45,000 spectators. Four months of preparation reportedly went into its planning, all of which was overseen by event management company Fusion Events Pvt Ltd.
Flown at the main stage – designed to resemble a traditional temple of Lord Shiva – were 12 EAW KF760 line array elements supplemented with 12 KF 740 enclosures and six SB1000 subwoofers, while 16 distributed JBL VRX 915 arrays lined the parade ground. Also used were four EAW MicroWedge 15 monitors for fold-back, 12 JBL SRX 725 enclosures and 10 JBL SRX 728s. Power was courtesy of a mixture of amplifiers from Crest, Crown and Powersoft, while a selection of digital and analogue desks were used including an Avid Venue SC48, a Yamaha M7CL, a Soundcraft MH2 and two Soundcraft GB8s.
While the system was designed by EAW engineer James Bemlett, both Roshan Malim and ‘Poncho’ Gopinadhan from E&E Systems (India) were on site for technical support. Durgesh Sound & Light Systems CEO Satya Prakash Soni was quick to praise the company. ‘This was not the first time that E&E Systems has extended support to us,’ he explained. ‘This has been so ever since we purchased the EAW KF 760 system from them – in fact we were so pleased with the KF 760 and the support provided that we decided to add the KF 740 line array.’
He added: ‘Fusion Events had a clear idea of what they wanted – the sound had to be loud yet comfortable and no matter where people were seated the sound had to be uniform. Our technical team and execution team did an amazing job with a project of this scale.’