The system marks the six-month-old company's first live sound project since U2's legendary soundman Joe O'Herlihy joined the Vanguardia team in a consultancy role in September. The South Stand, which takes Twickenham's capacity to 82,000 for matches, allowed the stadium to host a record crowd when the stand was opened for the Investec Challenge match between England and New Zealand on 5 November. However, its roof has yet to be finished, meaning that a temporary solution had to be found to provide a fully certifiable public address and voice announcement (PA/VA) system to cover the South Stand for these events.
Main contractor Carillion and the Rugby Football Union, owners of the stadium, turned to Vanguardia, whose consultants Jim Griffiths and John Staunton have extensive experience of the stadium. "With nowhere to hang loudspeakers we needed to design a system that would cover the whole of the grandstand from ground level on match days," explains Jim Griffiths. "It had to meet all the necessary requirements for intelligibility for use as a voice evacuation system, and double-up as a general PA announcement and high quality pre-match music playback system.
"We carried out a detailed EASE analysis of the grandstand and concluded that a mixture of Funktion One Res 5 and Res 4 full-range cabinets would give us both the coverage angles and the essential clarity and power that we required from small cabinets - because keeping sightlines clear was also an important consideration."
The system, which is rented in from ML Executives for each match, comprises six Funktion One Resolution 5 narrow dispersion arena loudspeakers and six Resolution 4 wide dispersion cabinets, ground stacked at intervals along the edge of the pitch and angled back to face up into the grandstand seating, supplemented by four L-Acoustics dV-SUB subwoofers.
The complete loudspeaker system is controlled by a pair of XT DP226 processors and an XTA C2 compressor, driven by 12 Lab.gruppen FP6400 power amplifiers - and takes a feed from the stadium's main PA control room, where the entertainment sound sources can be overriden by safety announcements.
"It's been highly successful," adds Griffiths, "in that it more than meets the official RASTI and other requirements - and sounds superb when it's used for music playback. There's also plenty of headroom to carry voice announcements over the roar of the crowd."
Vanguardia Consulting opened its doors in May when Jim Griffiths and John Staunton left Capita Symonds, and spent their first summer as Vanguardia managing noise control and licencing issues for most of the UK's biggest outdoor shows. An independent company, it specialises in the acoustic design of venues, both within and outside the building itself, sound system design, and noise control at live events. The team is currently working on the new Wembley Stadium and the O2 Arena - the former Millennium Dome - both of which are scheduled to open in 2007.
At PLASA in September the company announced that U2's legendary soundman Joe O'Herlihy was joining them in a consultancy role to bring real-life sound engineering expertise to the team - in effect, representing the view of the 'end user' of the venues and sound systems that Vanguardia help to design.
Griffiths adds: "Our reception by the live sound industry has been overwhelming. They've been wonderful - very loyal to us, and there's a very encouraging demand for our services."Twickenham Stadium's next phase of development is scheduled for next year and will include a new auditorium, hotel and conference suites.
(Lee Baldock)
