L-Acoustics tours South Korea with Cats

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats has enjoyed success in Asia since 2007 and has been touring South Korea since July 2017.

Specialist rental company Eco & Biz has been supplying the show’s audio requirements for the duration of the South Korea run, which centres around an L‑Acoustics Kara/Kiva II system. Eco & Biz’s Kim Ki-young has been a sound designer since 1992 and started as the manager of the sound team for Cats Korea Big Top Tour in 2003.

For the current tour, which is produced by Seol & Company of Korea and Really Useful Company (RUC), the Australian arm of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s UK-based Really Useful Group (RUG), Ki-young was given free rein on the audio design.

“From the first time we used L-Acoustics, the music director was delighted with the results we achieved, both in terms of SPL and clarity of reproduction, and we have used L‑Acoustics on Cats in Asia ever since,” said Ki-young.

“In fact, changing to L‑Acoustics played a big role in solving problems that we had experienced before. For example, because there’s never enough time for set-up, the ability to pre-plan each venue with Soundvision is a big help to me, as is being able to ground stack arrays in venues where we can’t hang speakers because of various restrictions within their structure.”

Kim has kept the design of Cats as simple as possible, with arrays positioned left and right of the stage, a centre cluster, front fills and subs, with the addition of stage foldback, effects and surround speakers.

“The original design for Cats in Korea used Kara for FOH L/R, but we also substitute hangs of 12 K2, depending on the size or structure of the venue,” added Ki-young.

“We deploy 14 Kara for the centre cluster, and match them with four ground stacked SB28 subs. This combination means that we have been able to provide consistent coverage for every venue on the tour. The system has shown its true abilities. I am very happy with the results and so are our clients.” 

The Korean tour concluded with an encore run at the Grand Theatre, Sejong Centre for the Performing Arts, which ran from 28 January to 18 February.