The P.A. People At Australian Events

The P.A. People’s Event Comms team’s support for many large Australian events continues — from F1GP Melbourne, Vivid Sydney, FIFA Women’s World Cup Unity Celebration & ‘live site’ support, to Suncorp Super Netball, Swifts and Giants at Ken Rosewall Arena, the NRL home games at Netstrata Stadium, City2 Surf in Sydney and the Boomers vs the World basketball tournament at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.

On Sunday August 13, the event known as ‘the world’s largest fun run’ City2Surf returned to the streets of Sydney with a reported 70,000 participants. The team provided distributed PA along the CBD staging area streets and for the Starting Line live sports presentation packages and official announcements. Similar coverage was provided for the Finish Line, plus eight different PA solutions and the Event Village for which The P.A. People provided a small Bose Professional ShowMatch system, catering for the welcome to participants, live music, award presentations, and the MC and sports presentations.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, a 66-box ShowMatch system was transported to support the Matilda’s vs France FIFA game ‘live site’ inside Rod Laver Arena — the same system that was used for Sydney Kings & Sydney Flames at Qudos Bank Arena. The same system was again used for three days of ‘friendlies’ for the ‘Boomers vs the World’ basketball tournament.

Earlier this year, and following the F1 Grand Prix in Melbourne, the team supported Vivid Sydney with an extensive comms package as well as PA systems at various installations around the CBD. The P.A. People is one of the hidden yet integral companies supporting Vivid,  this year supplying 650 digital two-way radios to enable all the security, the volunteers, and pretty much all staff over the 8km Light Walk. The event saw The company build a network over the whole of the site which also included 80 network switches — all temporarily installed on a combination of existing in-ground fibre, temporary fibre and RF links.

“We also provide network to 40 x VMS display boards for directions, each of which has a PA system for emergency crowd control, and there are some 60 x CCTV cameras that we install,” said Chris Dodds. Additionally, the team provided audio for the Elemental show in Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour, which uses 48 x Celto 10-inch coaxial cabinets in pairs on three-metre trusses with an 18-inch sub at the base of each truss, along with the production sound system for First Light, the Vivid Opening Ceremony, featuring a live performance form Australian rock legends Yothu Yindi.

Following Vivid, the Event Comms team were asked to provide an unusual audio solution to support the FIFA Women’s World Cup Unity Celebration on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was an early start for the team to ensure everything was in place quickly for the 8am celebrations. Once again, the team were able to work alongside the event producers to provide high quality audio systems for the marshalling areas, and the actual ceremony on the centre of the bridge — all with a bump-in time of just a few hours.

July saw a return to the sporting arena, with the Events team assisting with a sound system in Qudos Bank Arena to finish off the Suncorp Super Netball season. The P.A. People provided a Bose Professional ShowMatch PA along with a full duplex Clear-Com FSII communications system for both the major semi-final and the preliminary final. The finals were the culmination of a successful season where The P.A. People provided venue technical support along with sports presentation requirements for both the Swifts and Giants home games at Ken Rosewall Arena. Meanwhile, a second ShowMatch system deployed on ‘Carts’ PA also returned to Jubilee Netstrata Stadium augmenting the installed system for the Dragons home games for the NRL.

Image Credit: Destination NSW