The Pope reaches over a million in Milan with Electro-Voice

A host of Electro-Voice line array loudspeaker system were recently deployed for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Milan for the World Meeting of Families.

The Pope celebrated the Feast of the Testimonies and High Mass with over a million people at the nearby Bresso Airport, whereby a stage the size of a church was constructed for the event, featuring a semi-transparent dome inspired by the windows of Milan Cathedral. This presented the sound reinforcement team, led by Milan-based service company MMS, with a challenge that involved not only reproducing the Pope’s words but also the sound of an orchestra and a choir of 1,500.

In order to provide optimum audio coverage across the 790,000 square-metre area, a number of Electro-Voice line array loudspeaker systems were installed. The PA clusters were distributed evenly, with the elements flown from 20 scaffolding towers.

The task of ensuring not only that the sizeable congregation could hear the Pope’s words, but also that their view and the lines of sight of the television cameras remained unobstructed, fell to some 275 technicians.

Massimo Sartirana was responsible for the design of the sound reinforcement system, while Domenico Carnuccio served as both the FOH and systems engineer. The systems used comprised one X-Line line array made up of 48 elements, an XLC line array made up of 96 elements and an XLVC line array made up of 16 XLD281 elements.

Personal monitoring for the Pope was supplied by two white EVID 6.2 loudspeakers, whilst 16 EVID 3.2 loudspeakers provided foldback to the remaining participants on the stage. The enclosures were powered by a host of Electro-Voice power amplifiers, including 60 P3000, twelve TG5, six CP3000S and eight P2000 units.

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