Britannia Row Productions chose a Turbosound Flashline line array system to deliver world-class audio for the 18th year of the lively and irrepressible MOBO Awards.
Broadcast by BBC 3 from the recently completed 13,000-seat SECC Hydro Arena in Glasgow, Britannia Row supplied, installed and managed the entire sound system for the celebratory event.
Artists including Tinie Tempah, Rudimental, Naughty Boy, Laura Mvula, So Solid Crew and Iggy Azalea performed to the excited audience while DJs Trevor Nelson and Sarah-Jane Crawford kept the fast-paced event moving.
Nico Royan, system engineer and designer for Britannia Row, describes the system design: “The set was far wider than I would have liked. To easily cover the room the system comprised main hangs of 12 Flashline TFS-900H four-way line array boxes a side with three Flex Array downfill boxes underneath.
“For the side hangs I decided on eight Flashline a side, and for delays I had six Flex Array a side, just to refresh the top seats.”
In addition Royan specified eight Flashline TFS-900B subwoofers per side.
“Howard Smart and Danny Cooklin from Turbosound have developed a new cardioid preset for the subs and I’m extremely impressed with it. It’s eliminated almost all of the low frequency that was coming out the back, which is really very helpful.”
Royan also added compact two-way TQ-308s along the monitor shelf, just for lip fill for the central area. Over to the side of the main performance stage, where the MOBO Awards were presented to the winners, Royan specified two small stacks of Aspect point source loudspeakers.
“This was because the presenter platform was right in front of a big hang of Flashline,” he explains. “To solve this I routed the presenter output so it only fed the top part of the flown array, and then used the Aspect to take over to cover the floor.”
Dave Compton, account manager for Britannia Row adds, “We’ve been providing sound systems to the MOBO Awards for more than ten years now. It presents the ideal opportunity to put a good new system in front of the engineers and say ‘try it out, have a listen.’
“The response has been very positive from both the artists and from their engineers. Technically Flashline’s a fantastic solution for the diverse array of music being presented.”
And Greg Ryan, FOH engineer for Tinie Tempah and Iggy Azelea agrees.
“I used the Turbosound Flashline system on the Wireless Festival earlier this year for Tinie and also on Whizkids, and I was captivated,” he explains. “We were in the big dance tent and tents can be difficult at the best of times. The Flashline system sounds really good, it’s really in your face and with real detail and accuracy even 50 or 60 metres away.”
Turbosound’s Danny Cooklin notes that the new cardioid sub performed beyond expectations, and found favor with the production crew and artists.
“System coverage was good all over the venue — quite an achievement bearing in mind the complexity of the set and seating arrangement. Although the bass stacks were fairly far apart we were pleased with the performance of our latest cardioid settings,” he comments. “In front of the stacks the bass was clean and tight, with a significant reduction in level behind. We are currently also working on a number of new bass configurations and we are looking forward to testing and rolling them out in the near future.”
