The newly built Kraków Arena in Poland has been fitted with Allen & Heath GLD-80 and Qu-16 mixers. The arena is the biggest in Poland, with a capacity of 20,000 and a 500m-wide LED screen on its exterior. It is a multi-purpose venue hosting a variety of sports and music events, exhibitions and conferences.
Konsbud Audio won the contract to design and supply the audio system and decided to use three Allen & Heath digital mixers. The main console is a GLD-80, located in the control room of the main hall and used for mixing and signal distribution between all audio systems. There are also two Qu-16 mixers; one in a mobile rack that can be used on the floor of the main hall, and another in the control room in the smaller, secondary hall.
Piotr Jankiewicz, director of design and integration at Konsbud Audio, explained his choice: “We decided to use GLD-80 and Qu-16 because of their compatibility and functionality. Both mixers are compact and have the key features of a large console. They work with the same expanders and AudioRacks, so it is possible to use the same connections. Thanks to the dSnake protocol the connection is over a simple Cat5 cable.”
The audio signals from different parts of the venue are fed to the GLD-80 via AR84 and AR2412 AudioRacks. The mobile Qu-16 is also compatible with the AudioRacks, giving it the flexibility to act as a secondary mixer or as the main mixer, managing the whole system. Qu-Pad and GLD OneMix apps mean the audio team also has the ability to control the mixers via iPad from anywhere in the arena.
