During more than twenty years with Audio Design International, Jeroen ten Brinke has been the sound designer for concerts, fashion shows, and other large-scale events. This year, he took the reins at the Eurovision Song Contest. He made time to talk to Live Design during rehearsals for the show at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena in May.
Live Design: How is it going?
Jeroen ten Brinke: I see a lot of people walking around trying not to show they are stressed, but it is going well. It is a new world, temporarily.
LD: We’ve heard a lot about sanitizing equipment because of the pandemic this year.
JtB: Yes, we have two people and all they do is clean the equipment!
LD: Did the original plan for the (canceled) 2020 show change much?
JtB: When that sound design was made, we thought the arena would be full, but then we thought it might not have anyone after COVID. We only knew one month before that we could have 3,500 people in the audience. Now we have a lot of ambient mics [to pick up the audience] because there are 3500 in a place that normally has 16,000. We can enhance the applause if we feel it is not enough.
LD: Can you talk us through some of your equipment choices?
JtB: We are using Shure mics because there are two transmitters, if one gets [interrupted] it will automatically jump to a new frequency and only drop for five milliseconds so no one will hear it. Our handhelds are all hopping on to different frequencies, so if another unwanted [intrudes] they just hop on a different frequency. That’s a great option and makes me feel very comfortable, because that’s the worst thing that can happen, a radio mic stops working or there is interference. We also have a member of the crew continuously checking batteries.
LD: Have there been any failures?
JtB: The only thing that has happened so far is that the delegations make their own pockets [in costumes] for mics and packs and sometimes they are not strong enough. We had one fall out, that’s the only drop out we’ve had, just a physical jack disconnected.
LD: What else has been a challenge?
JtB: The main challenge is the PA. The bottom of the speakers are aligned with the bottom of the lights so then lights can go everywhere. Nobody is blocking each other. The rigging is not made for that, but we got special permission to arrange a lot of the PA hanging this way.
Watch Audio Design International's Jeroen ten Brinke discuss sanitation measures.
Key Staff
Audio designer: Jeroen ten Brinke
Project manager: Ampco Flashlight Remco Verhoek
Monitor engineers: MON1 Ron Peeters, MON2 Peter Velthuijzen
FOH Engineers: FOH1 Tom Gelissen, FOH2 Ronald Koster
Playback engineers: Playback 1 Willem de Bruin, Playback 2 Robert Jansen
RF engineers: RF1 Aart Heus, RF2 Johalee Glastra
PA system tech: Jurriën Hildebrand
Gear List
(Supplied by Ampco Flashlight)
Audience area:
76x L-Acoustics K1
36x L-Acoustics Kara
4x L-Acoustics SB18
6x L-Acoustics x12
18x L-Acoustics KS28
Amps
84x L-Acoustics LA12x
Monitoring:
10x L-Acoustics Kara
8x Synco CW152
4x Synco CW121
Drive:
2x Outline Newton
10x Lake LM44
UnderBalcony:
10x L-Acoustics 5xT
Greenroom:
40x L-Acoustics K2
56x Synco TRC81
16x L-Acoustics Kara
Controls:
4x DiGiCo Quantum7 consoles (FOH & Monitors in 1 loop, 1 main and 1 backup loop)
4x DiGiCo SD-rack (2 main and 2 backup loop)
2x DiGiCo SD-Rack mini (1 main/1 backup)
4x DiGiCo Orangebox (2 main/2 backup)
2x Yamaha CL1 (1 main/1 backup)
2x Yamaha Rio 1608-2 (1 main/1 backup)
2x Yamaha Rio 3224-2 (1 main/1 backup)
Playback:
3x Mac mini
3x RME MadifacexT
Directout Madi switcher
Rehearsal rooms:
3 x Shure Axient Digital Quad receiver.
6 x Shure ADx2 Handzender
6 x Shure ADx1 Beltpack
6 x DPA 4088
6 x DPA D-facto Head
1 x Shure AD610 Showlinks
8 x PSM1000 Transmitter
16 x P10R IEM Reciever
In-Ear systems:
11 x PSM1000 Transmitter
70 x P10R IEM Receiver
240 x Shure SE425
Press area:
3 x Shure Axient Digital Quad receiver
6 x Shure AD2 Handzender
6 x Shure AD1 Beltpack
Miscellaneous:
8 x Shure AD610 ShowLinks
4 x Shure UA874 Actieve antenne
3 x Shure HA-8091 Helical-Dome-Antenna
4 x Shure UA860 Omni Antenne
2 x Shure AxT600 Spectrum scanner