10,000 fans in Cologne celebrate New Year 2010 in style – with Eclipse

February 2010

The Lanxess Arena in Cologne / Germany recently played host to one of the city’s most widely- anticipated events of the year. On New Year’s Eve, no fewer than 10,000 fans flocked to the arena to witness the 40^th anniversary concert of German cult band, the Bläck Fööss. Cologne-based full service production company, event-solution Veranstaltungstechnik GmbH, was responsible for providing all the audio equipment required for the highly complex show, including an Innovason Eclipse digital mixing console at FoH and a Grand Live on monitors.

Event-solution have been the Bläck Fööss’s supplier of choice for their big New Year’s Eve shows for the last eight years, looking after every aspect of the audio set-up including mixing consoles, microphone set-up, stage monitoring, and of course the main PA system. This year, for a change, the band used in-ear monitoring. “The specially-designed stage was situated right in the middle of the arena at audience level,” explained event-solution’s CEO, Jochen Gotzen. “This meant that monitoring with speakers was not the best solution, either in terms of design or sound.”

In preparation for the show, event-solution commandeered the gymnasium of a neighbouring school where they recreated the entire stage. Three days of rehearsals followed during which all the settings and scenes for both monitor and FoH consoles were created and saved, whilst a separate crew loaded into the Lanxess Arena. The final day of preparations saw everyone move into the Lanxess Arena for final soundchecking, where event-solution made full use of the Eclipse’s Virtual Soundcheck facility. Using the show that had previously been recorded during rehearsals, the engineer simply played back the FoH mix in the Lanxess Arena and made the necessary adjustments. The band only had to come in for fine-tuning at the end. Gotzen was delighted with the solution. “It saved us all a considerable amount of time and nerves,” he remarked. “The engineer has much more time and freedom to move around the venue, listen to the results and make his adjustments whilst the band relaxes elsewhere. When they finally do come in, most of the work is already done – it’s much quicker and less stressful for everyone.”

Established Quality

Event-solution’s sound engineers are long-time users of Innovason consoles: the monitoring for this event was completed with a Grand Live, while an Eclipse was used for the first time for the FOH mix. The Eclipse’s M.A.R.S. internal recording feature has further advantages, namely that the mixes can also be used as backups. The production was therefore prepared with a three-tier protection: An OB van was available for the real recording task; another opportunity for the recording presented itself via the MADI feed from the Innovason console; and of course, the internal recording feature was used as well. “The internal plug-ins, whose settings can now be saved in the Eclipse, are another advantage of the console. They can easily substitute the analogue inserts, whose settings could not be saved, but had to be memorized,” described Gotzen.

The SmartPanel and SmartFaders are also highly appreciable bonuses of the Eclipse. They make configuration of the control surface completely flexible – all channels that need to be directly accessible can be kept on the console, while the less-used functions can be assigned to the SmartPanel. “There, all S-faders can be configured at will and are able to control groups or layers of different sizes – anything you like, really,” explained Gotzen. “The new Eclipse is equal to all tasks and contains new, innovative, and superbly thought-out features. In my opinion, in the live sector, there is simply no competition in terms of flexibility and functionality.”

About event-solution

event-solution is a professional, full service contractor for audio, lighting and video technology based in Cologne/Germany. The service and support company has specialized in events as well as the concert and trade show sector, and offers professional, cutting-edge event technology for conferences, concerts, trade shows, and shows.

The company, founded in 1992, has a long and impressive record of success. Under the overall leadership of Arne Dulas and Jochen Gotzen, event-solution Veranstaltungstechnik GmbH realized numerous events in cooperation with its customers.