Sister companies Richard Brooker Sound Design and Canegreen Commercial combined their talents and resources to create an effective (though complex) sound solution on the river Thames this July.

Westminster City Council, the Millennium Commission and Lambeth Council organised the event that included a Royal opening and multi faith dedication of the two new Hungerford Golden Jubilee footbridges. The event commemorated the building of the elegant new footbridges, with actors from musicals Mamma Mia and My Fair lady performing pieces from their shows to the gathered crowd. Local dignitaries and religious leaders attended the opening including, Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra and Ken Livingston, Mayor of London.

The challenge for the sound team was to take feeds from the public speakers and performers on two sites and achieve good coverage in four areas, which effectively involved installing four PA systems for the event. The overall system was designed by Richard Brooker, of Richard Brooker Sound Design and implemented by Canegreen Commercial, carrying the sound to VIPs on the bridge and public on both banks of the river.

Richard Brooker is associate sound designer for the productions of ‘My Fair Lady and ‘Mamma Mia’ and was chosen for this job because of his experience in theatre sound system design and understanding of their sound, as well as his experience with outdoor systems.

Richard explained; “Our brief for this event was to ensure the clarity of sound was constant at every point on the site, transferring the theatrical feel to the outdoor environment. Bringing this type of sound to an alien environment presented a number of challenges, but we had a good team to make it work. All those involved with the event wanted to ensure that not only the invited guests had clarity of sound but also assembled audience in the other areas could follow proceedings, they wanted passers-by to stop and take in what was going on. ”

The entertainment and speeches came from two stages, with the ‘main’ pa system placed in the centre of the western footbridge, where a stage was erected. From this stage, multi-faith blessings and speeches were read as well as a performance from the cast of the musical “My Fair Lady.”

The stage upon the bridge was flanked left and right by bleacher seating for the VIP’s, posing the problem of distributing sound evenly around the crowd without restricting their site lines. This was overcome by placing UPM speakers adjacent to the audience. The bridge system consisted of 12 EAW KF760 line array speakers, with 6 Meyer UPM1 and 1 Meyer USW1-P sub bass speakers on either side of the stage. Tom Marshall and Miles Marchment managed this system on the day behind an Aztec 24 + 8 console.

Richard explained; “The positioning of speakers for the bridge stage had to be thought through very carefully to ensure all assembled guests were covered. With the audience to the sides of the stage, positioning speakers between them was the most effective solution to ensure minimum overlap of the sound.”

Three hundred VIP’s watched the proceedings from a boat beneath the bridge, into which the sound was beamed via a live microwave radio link. (Screens were placed on board to accompany the sound equipment on the boat to ensure the assembled guests could follow proceedings.) Sound was distributed around the boat via a main stereo pair consisting of Meyer UPA-1P SP speakers with EAW self powered subs positioned at the front of the boat, with two delay lines feeding Meyer UPM1’s position further down the boat, controlled by a Meyer MPS3 stereo processor, with Damien Dyer behind an Allen & Heath Mix Wizard 12/2dx Console