MLA Compact at Battersea Fireworks with Old Barn Audio

Old Barn Audio were thrilled to be asked to provide the sound for Battersea Fireworks this year.  With a sold out crowd of 50,000 and working in Central London, dispersion, power and more importantly spillage to the surrounding buildings was paramount in the event organisers mind. Martin Audio’s award winning MLA was the perfect solution all round and did it perform? …too right it did!

Aided by Doug Hunt from DHSL, Old Barn Audio deployed two hangs of 11 x MLA Compact with a further two single element front fills. Fully programmed to cover the audience area of 150m, MLA Compact was programmed in Display to run the entire event at 95db – which it did seamlessly.  Instructions by the event coordinators to dip the entire sound just before all of the food vendors worked perfectly and the sound behind the food hut’s (by the nearest houses) was measured at around 60db.  The two hangs were supplemented by eight Martin Audio WS218X subs all powered by MA12k-DSP amplifiers to offer some low end support.

Christian Williams, Capital FM DJ, who compered the entire evening, was astounded by the clarity and linearity of the system.  He even commented about how were we able to achieve that amount of volume from those few boxes – another shot in the arm for MLA!

Jubilee Fireworks who controlled all of the fireworks worked very closely with Old Barn Audio staff to run and trigger all of the fireworks set to pre-recorded music that detonated the fireworks via time-code. The theme of the night was ‘A Royal Evening…’ so music from Queen and Royal Blood made perfect sense, all linked with typical royal coloured fireworks such as purples and reds.

For more information, please contact Old Barn Audio Ltd on +44 (0)1892 752246