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Olympics "How did they do that" question #1


Pete Alcock

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Total spectacle last night. Makes one immensely proud. The organisation and project management skill that went into a show like that is unfathomable.

 

I noted that most, if not all the performers (even the children on the beds) has an earphone, obviously connected to an IEM pack of some sort. Did each one really have an expensive (sennheiser or similar) radio pack? Surely not possible to coordinate that many, with the right performers getting the right pack on the right group, and making sure they all had fresh batteries, and of course getting them all back in afterwards? Or were they all told to bring a small radio and tune to 10X MHz and they just used a low power broadcast transmitter? No idea, but someone must know. Would be fascinated to find out.

 

PA

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From the BBC News website...

 

In my case, that job was playing one of the Working Men and Women charged with tearing up England's "green and pleasant land" and erecting an industrial landscape in its place.

 

Marching in time to a "click track" piped into our ears through in-ear monitors, we set about the task with gusto.

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I've got no connection with the opening but I know that, in lieu of "proper" IEMs on big events like this, it's been known to get a temporary FM broadcast licence and use relatively inexpensive credit card-sized broadcast receivers. I believe that when a trick like this was used for the Sydney Olympics, participants were allowed to keep the radios as a thank you gift.
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There are basically 3 levels of monitoring on a gig like this:

 

Level 1 would be principle performers etc... (Macca...)

Level 2 would be Stage Managaement or key crew that need cues and programme feed as well as secondary performers

Level 3 would be the mass cast

 

The IEM system for the mass cast is made by riedel. They, I believe, mostly created this current system for Beijing where they needed 15k+ IEM packs. It basically is a receiver which can tune to 1 of half a dozen or so preset channels.

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Just back from this last night, bizarrely, I was in Neil's (who wrote the BBC piece) team of 4 industrial men & women - small world...

 

These are the IEM packs we had, teamed with the cheapest, nastiest earplugs. Nothing special, but did the job.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x37/alecsp/Various/IEM.jpg

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Thanks Alec,

 

Fascinating, and my curiosity is now satisfied. I though the 56.8MHz was an odd choice, but found that this band is allocated as follows:

 

"Euro Recommendation T/R 75-03 (Nice 1985) set 67.5-68 as a prefered band for UK use by visiting foreigners for

temporary PMR use by "ITINERANT ENTERPRISES AND SPORTING EVENTS", but 75-03 has not been implemented by the UK

 

There is a Euro plan (25-08) to re-organise 54-68:

61.0125 ... Base, to 67.9875 (split -7: 54.0125-60.9875)"

 

Cheers,

 

PA

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