Kicking off in India early in February, the tour will visit more than 30 countries in the coming months, and comes to Europe for its final leg beginning in late June through mid-August. ML Group, with offices in the UK and US, enjoys a steady relationship with Iron Maiden, previously supplying a large-scale EAW-based system for the band's 2006 Matter of Life or Death concert tour.
"For the stadium tour of Europe, we'll be supplying four main hangs of 18 EAW KF760 large-format line array modules and two EAW KF761 wide dispersion modules," explains Gary Marks, managing director of ML Group. "That's a total of 80 cabinets on the main four hangs, plus 24 EAW SB1000 subwoofers per side. Also, because the stages will be very wide, we'll use six more KF761 modules flown in the centre to serve as a vocal fill."
Marks is also coordinating system issues with partner companies around the globe, such as Norwest Productions of Sydney, Australia and Brantley Sound Associates of Nashville. As he did on the 2006 tour, Michael Hackman is again serving as the line array system technician for the tour, also performing system analysis and optimisation at each stop with an assist from EAW Smaart v.6.
(Jim Evans)
