Norwest Productions, one of Australia’s largest audio service providers, recently assisted the World Youth Day (WYD) organisation in providing audio for the largest Catholic youth event in the world. WYD08 was held in Sydney, Australia from the 15th to the 20th of July 2008. Organised by the Catholic Church, WYD brings together young people from around the globe to celebrate and learn about their faith. WYD08 is the largest event Australia has ever hosted, attracting over 125,000 international visitors – more than the 2000 Olympics. It also marked the first visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to Australia. All audio systems were initially designed by Scott Willsallen of Auditoria and then implemented, managed and operated by Norwest Productions staff. At four of the major sites; Barangaroo, Cockle Bay, Centennial Park and Royal Randwick Racecourse, Norwest supplied audio systems for both liturgical services and youth musical festivals, which included a massive complement of Lab.gruppen power amplifiers.
A total of 156 fP 6400, 90 FP 10000Q amplifiers and 4 PLM 10000Q Powered Loudspeaker Management systems from Lab.gruppen were deployed across the four locations. The unusually shaped 1.2 km wide by 400m deep Barangaroo venue was chosen to host the Opening Mass and Papal arrival ceremonies. The main stage PA system, which was required to handle everything from spoken word to orchestral musical to rock bands, consisted of four arrays of Adamson Y-Axis supplemented by three concentric delay lines to assist in covering the massive area.
Darling Harbour was home to numerous events ranging from the Stations of the Cross – a complex event staged all over the city of Sydney – through to several Youth Festival stages. Norwest supplied four systems at this venue; Cockle Bay, Tumbalong Park, Palm Grove and Harbourside Amphitheatre. Each of these stages had Christian bands running over three days with up to twelve bands per day entertaining the crowd walking around the Darling Harbour precinct.
With so much Norwest equipment heavily involved in other venues, Hills SVL came to the rescue supplying two of their Turbosound Aspect Systems for the Harbourside and Palm Grove locations. The Palm Grove system was made up of three Turbosound Aspect TA 880H 3-way trapezoidal cabinets per side. These were tri-amplified using one 2–channel Lab.gruppen FP 7000 (LF) and one 4-channel Lab.gruppen FP 10000Q (MF/HF). Infills comprised of a single Turbosound Aspect Wide TA500 3-way trapezoidal cabinet per side, – bi-amplified using one Lab.gruppen FP 10000Q power amplifier – plus a Turbosound TSW 218 dual 18” horn loaded sub enclosure powered by a 2-channel Lab.gruppen FP 13000. The Harbourside system was made up of two Turbosound Aspect Wide TA 500T 3-way trapezoidal cabinets per side which in turn were bi-amplified using one Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Q with integrated Dolby Lake Processing. Sub reinforcement was two Turbosound TSW 218 dual 18” horn-loaded sub enclosures per side.
Last but by no means least, for the final events of WYD08, was possibly the largest audio system ever assembled in Australia at Royal Randwick Race course in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs. To go along with the eight Adamson Y-18 Y-Axis line array cabinets, with Y10 infill and T21 subs, either side of enormous stage an additional sixty six delay towers were required to cover the 1,000,000m2 area. These consisted of six concentric delay lines at intervals of 80-100m. The loudspeaker manufactures represented were as diverse as the crowd due to the large numbers of cabinets that had to be assembled from across Australia. The majority of the speaker system and all control, monitors, radio and wired microphones came from the Norwest inventory. It could not have been achieved without the help of Oceania Audio (now a Norwest group company), Johnston Audio Services and IJS who supplied equipment and staff to bump in, manage and bump out their respective equipment.