Built within the shell of the former Millenium Dome, the site of which US entertainment and venue management group AEG took over in 2005, London's O2 is one of the most high-profile entertainment venues in the UK. Our engineers were closely involved with the design and specification of the sound systems found in many areas of the O2 complex, with the majority of the equipment supplied by Harman brands.
Today, the O2 has a world-class msuic and sports arena, a smaller live music venue (IndigO2), a Vue 11-screen cinema, and a bustling entertainments and restaurant district.
An impressive roll-call of contractors worked on the Public Address / Voice Alarm systems at the O2 - and all of the companies involved had to work closely to order to deliver a system of almost unparalleled complexity. For example, security specialist ADT employed voice alarm expert Vision Systems to implement AEG's requirements for the O2's PA/VA systems, as designed and specified by the team at Vanguardia Consulting in conjunction with us.
'I've never been involved in anything of this complexity,' commented Vision System's O2 project manager at the time. 'I'm an electronics and audio engineer, but I've had to learn about networking, wireless operation, show rigging, and architectural concerns.'
From this engineer's description of the 600,000 Watt BSS and JBL system used in the arena, some sense of the scale of the project emerges. 'There are about 20 control racks up in the gantries in the roof of the Arena, each with separate A and B networks and compnents. One of those racks draws 260 Amps, and the cables to it - just the cables - weigh five tonnes.'
Acousticians from Harman Pro in the UK and USA worked closely with Vision Sytems, providing them with support throughout the installation, while Vanguardia handled the Arena's acoustic treatment. Our specialists carefully modelled the behaviour of various possible PA solutions in acoustic design software package EASE, discussing the designs with the Vanguardia team until they settled on a system.
Later, when Vision Systems designed and specified the speaker systems serving the public walkways around the Arena and along the waterfront, they didn't initially consider including JBL models in their designs. Using EASE models, our engineers demonstrated that JBL's AM4200 speakers would be perfect for the waterfront, with the larger AM6200 in clusters in the piazzas. This was the solution that Vision Systems chose to adopt for the final design, albeit with leak-proof, weatherised versions of the speakers, as they were to be situated directly under the roof of the O2's canopy.
The IndigO2 venue at the O2 complex presented a number of interesting challenges. Despite its unusual shape, which was dictated by the retail units situated on the same part of the site, the owners AEG were keen that sight lines to the stage in the club should not be obstructed by sound equipment. This took some expert juggling in the EASE computer modelling package by our acousticians, but the end result delighted IndigO2's owner and customers alike.
The finished venue combines products from every Harman brand, including JBL speakers, Crown amplification, dbx, BSS and Lexicon signal processing, numerous AKG microphones and two Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles. The key components in the venue are controllable via the Harman group's proprietary HiQnet network.
Even the sound systems in the multi-plex cinema proved to be all Harman projects, because the cinema sound system specialists who installed them, Bell Theatre Services, are admirers of the JBL approach to cinema sound. BTS based the installs on the refit they carried out at the prestigious Empire Cinema in London's Leicester Square, fitting JBL speakers, dbx processing and Crown amplification throughout.
