Royal de Luxe, which was established in the early eighties, has become famous for its extravagant street spectacles. The company lives up to its reputation with 'The Sultan and his Time-Travelling Elephant', which attracted more than 100,000 spectators in the two cities, Amiens in Somme and Nantes in Britanny, which had been home to Jules Verne.
French PA company Melpomen, which has been working with Royal de Luxe for the last decade, provided the sound reinforcement system for both events, which will be staged in London in early September. "Working with Royal de Luxe is always an enriching experience, these guys have no boundaries and their shows are always impressive," says Thierry Tranchant, technical supervisor from Melpomen. "The gear we were asked to provide had to handle the diversity of events taking place during the performance. Given that we were dealing with four locations, (the elephant and the giant doll moving throughout the city, an open-air cinema and a large stage for the final concert), almost the whole of our Nexo inventory was required on set."
The massive robot elephant (39ft x 26ft) was followed by a truck which carries a custom-made stage for the band. A GEO T tangent array system mounted on the truck consisted of 20 T4805 array modules and eight CD18 sub-bass cabinets, divided between each corner of the platform, with four PS15s and two S2 subs for stage monitoring. The whole system was powered by Camco Vortex Series power amplifiers and controlled by Nexo NX241 digital processors.
The system used on the giant doll, hanging directly on its metallic structure, consisted of eight Nexo GEO S830 modules providing a 30° directivity radius and four CD12 subs. The system was powered by three CAMCO Vortex 4 amplifiers and controlled by two NX241 digital processors. For the open-air cinema, four Nexo PS15s powered by Camco Vortex 4, were used. "We hung two speakers above the screen and placed the other pair on poles, the whole delivering 1kW of sound which is quite comfortable in terms of listening."
For the front of house PA, 36 T4805 vertical array modules and four T2815 downfill cabinets were used, together with 16 CD18 sub-bass cabinets, powered by Camco Vortex 6 and controlled by Nexo NX241 processors and a Midas Venice 320 console. "A spectacle from Royal de Luxe is made up of gigantism, surprises, astonishments and, most importantly, a high level of professionalism that everyone, participants and audience alike, remembers with emotion. Our main goals were to participate in the success of the event and meet the numerous challenges given. We've succeeded on both fronts, and we are looking forward to introducing the magic of Jules Verne to London," says Trenchant.
(Lee Baldock)
