Alcons Audio’s LR14 pro-ribbon line-array system provided sound reinforcement throughout the run of Soldier of Orange – The Musical, which closed on July 12 after 16 years, 3,967 performances and 4m visitors, making it the longest-running production in Dutch theatre history. The system had been in place since the show’s Royal Premiere on October 30, 2010, staged in the purpose-built TheaterHangaar at the former Valkenburg naval airbase in the Netherlands.
The production used raked seating for 1,100 people on a 30m diameter turntable, revolving past stage sets around the hangar with 180-degree video projection. Because of the construction’s weight, loudspeakers were installed outside the turntable, requiring the moving audience to pass consistently through their coverage areas without loss of tonal balance, localisation or speech intelligibility.
Sound designer Jeroen ten Brinke specified nearly 100 Alcons LR14 cabinets, arranged as left-centre-right arrays for each scene with a double 15in subwoofer, with 14 arrays surrounding the venue powered by 30 Alcons ALC4 2 x 2kW amplified loudspeaker controllers. Signals were carried via optical cable through a drum system capable of turning through 7,000 degrees without twisting or breaking, with the right-hand array of one scene becoming the left-hand array of the next as the seating rotated.
Jos Diergaarde, sound engineer for the production, said: “In this rare situation, with a revolving audience area moving past 14 fixed loudspeaker arrays, the Alcons system delivered an almost phase-neutral result. The clarity and intelligibility of the Alcons systems were exceptionally high, which is essential for the reinforcement of voices in a musical.”
Diergaarde added that the system required no loudspeaker replacements across any of the LR14 arrays throughout the production’s 16-year run, maintaining consistent sound quality throughout.
Jeroen ten Brinke said: “The trust we placed in the Alcons systems has been fully validated, not only by their exceptional speech intelligibility and gain-before-feedback, but also by their faultless reliability, with not a single failure throughout years of intensive, almost daily use.”
You can subscribe to Installation magazine for free here and the daily newsletter here.
