Clair Toronto Wins the Gold
The XXI Olympic Games may be a memory, but for Clair, it marked a major milestone in large scale event production. Held on February 12–28 in Vancouver, British Columbia, the 2010 Winter Games featured nearly 2,600 athletes from 82 nations compete in 86 events in fifteen disciplines, and an Opening Ceremony that was watched by more than 1 billion viewers worldwide.
This was the second Olympic experience for Clair, according to director of event management Mike Wolf, who oversaw the sound system for the medal presentation plaza at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Wolf and a team of up to 15 worked to set up and oversee the sound system at the 60,000-seat BC Place Stadium, the site of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as the nightly Victory Ceremonies, which featured the awarding of medals, presentations and around a dozen concert events. BC Place Stadium is Canada’s first domed stadium, the largest air-supported stadium in the world, and also the first indoor venue used for the Opening Ceremonies for any Olympics.
The Clair crews started work in the stadium on January 3, 2010, with rehearsals beginning on January 16. The Opening Ceremony took place on February 12, with Victory Celebrations were from February 14 to 26, and the Closing Ceremony, February 28.
According to Wolf, point pre-rigging began in October 2009. Large cranes and manlifts were brought in to hang the nearly 300 points and to position equipment in the top sections around the perimeter of the 250 foot roof – a task that also required the removal of the in-house PA system and most of the ceiling lights. The rig included numerous underhung motors and a number of large winches which were to be used as part of the flying personnel rigs. In December 2009, construction began on the false floor/stage deck, requiring a hole to be dug in the center of the stadium floor to accommodate the 30-foot high lifts.
The stadium’s 10 acre fiberglass woven roof is kept inflated using 16 electric power fans to keep the air pressure inside the stadium at a higher level than the air outside. The roof has a circumference of 2,500 feet and a span of 640 feet by 77 feet.
After about a dozen days of setup, Clair was involved in daily rehearsals from January 16 to February 12. The 360-degree PA for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies included an inner ring of 96 model i-3 cabinets flown as 8 arrays of 12 high each, an outer ring consisting of 84 Clair model i-5 cabinets as 12 arrays of seven-high each, and eight arrays of 2-high Clair BT-218 sub cabinets; each ring had a trim of nearly 100 feet from the stage deck.
“We started with the outer ring of 12 arrays of 8 high i-5’s,” says Wolf, “but during rehearsals, we had to bring in the entire outer ring of i-5’s and remove one box to make them 7 high, and then re-rig them so they pointed down more. This was done to accommodate the video projection.”
For additional coverage, the system tied into a new underbalcony system, installed in early January by Clair Brother Systems, and also included 32 Clair FF-2 speakers mounted in the walls around the floor.
Amp racks, AC distros and electronics racks were Clair StakRaks mounted on trusses 100 feet in the air around the ceiling in four quadrants. Clair also used the Dante protocol networking system to distribute both audio and control – a configuration which represented the largest and most complex Dante system to date. The signal run from FOH to the last amp rack was 700 meters, or about 2,250 feet.
“The Victory Celebrations took place at the West end of the stadium, with a PA consisting of four arrays of 10-high Clair i-5, 16 ground stacked BT218 subs and eight P-2 front fills,” says Wolf. “We also used four seven-high i-5 arrays and four two-high BT218 arrays as delays. We had to remove two of our i-3 arrays before we could hang the Victory i-5s.
“Each day during Victory, we had to remove the end stage in order for Closing Ceremony rehearsals. The stage broke apart into eight sections, and then could be rolled away. We had to remove our subs and everything that was on the floor. After rehearsals, we had four hours to rebuild the stage, perform soundchecks, then start the show. The show running time was determined by the TV broadcast schedule.” Clair supplied five Yamaha PM5D digital mixing consoles, two DigiDesign 96 channel Venue systems, a Midas XL-4 and H3000, and several Mackie consoles for the operation of the Victory events.
“One aspect of this event and our system,” says Wolf, “is that for the first time, I can say that we can physically ‘raise the roof!’ Once our system was pumping, the riggers confirmed that we were physically moving the roof, and that it moved as much as five feet during the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. That’s with 250,000 pounds of gear and people hanging off it; we were approximately 60,000 pounds of that.”
Wolf and Clair remained in Vancouver for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Winter Games on March 12. The crew began load out immediately following, and ended two days ahead of the original schedule.
