From safety announcements and music, to team changes and minutes of added time, stadium announcer Steve Buxton is a busy man who carries great responsibility. On February 1st Stoke's heroes demonstrated their progress under manager Mark Hughes by putting Premiership giants Manchester United to the sword. On a memorable day for the club, Steve was putting into action some progress of his own.
Prior to that momentous day, Steve was to be found high above the pitch, behind glass and mixing his output from information received by walkie-talkie. This unsatisfactory state of affairs needed to be resolved to better cater for the needs of a top sports stadium and Stoke City called in Paul Heath from HSL Entertainment to consult over the best way forward. Paul contacted POLARaudio who supplied a Mackie DL806 iPad(R) Control Wireless Mixer to free Steve from his distant eyrie and bring him into the centre of the action.
The DL806 allows its user to combine the proven power of a full-featured digital mixer with the ease and mobility of an iPad. Supplying unparalleled sound quality with 8 Onyx mic preamps and the performance of 24bit Cirrus Logic AD/DA converters, the DL806, with seamless wired to wireless iPad control, now allows Steve the freedom to mix from anywhere in the stadium. The power to deliver his choice of content is now instantaneous and quite literally, at his fingertips.
Steve, who is also head of PR, Event and Media Management at Stoke City, is relishing his new-found mobility: "Being in every way so much closer to the action makes a huge difference. I'm now physically at the centre of things and that allows me to respond to events and convey information without the previous to-ing and fro-ing via the walkie-talkie. Part of my job is also to help build the atmosphere before kick-off, so to be pitch-side rather than high up behind glass really helps me to feel properly part of what's going on."
HSL director Paul Heath adds, "This was a relatively small scale solution to a major headache and it serves as a good illustrator of how choosing the right technology is the key to a successful outcome. The Mackie DL806 is a versatile piece of kit and has more than proved its worth at the Brittania Stadium. Steve can now concentrate on the job in hand from the thick of the action without all the previous hassles."
(Jim Evans)
