Peter Pollard leaning on his favourite box

Once a year Australia plays host to a Tri Nationals series with a twist. Played on Coolangatta beach over the month of January, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa lock horns to see who will win the XXXX Beach Cricket Trophy (for the benifit of those outside OZ, XXXX is a Queensland beer).

This year, Gold Coast AV company, Blue Shadow Group won the contract to supply the sound system to be used at the ground. Managing Director Daniel de Vries opted to use his HK Audio Contour Array system. With a total of four grandstands and the VIP area known as the Retreat, this was a very large area to cover, so ten Contour Array half-stacks were used to give the crowd an even coverage. ‘The coverage was fantastic you could hear everything from anywhere around the ground’, says Daniel. Also on hand to oversee the audio was one of Australia’s busiest production managers Peter Pollard ‘It’s great to have the dispersion of a Line Array cabinet in this environment’, says Peter.

With the Beach Cricket going live to air on Channel 10, there were a few requirements to ensure that the live feed didn’t mix with the broadcast and that the crowd could still hear what was going on. ‘It is imperative to have good control over every area of the ground as I never know where Channel 10 will be interviewing from’, continues Peter. To give Peter the control that was required, every stack was put on a different send which meant that large cable runs were required. Daniel and the guys from Blue Shadow used the new Rapco Horizon Production Cables to do the job. ‘I must say it was very handy having the 30 and 45 metre lengths with the color code - it makes life very easy and the quality of these cables is great’, Daniel comments.

In the Retreat, audio was being feed through dB Technologies’ popular Opera 405s, which meant that the VIPs had great coverage both inside and outside of the bar. No excuse for not hearing the game play here.