Fairlight Delivers Audio for Opening and Closing Ceremonies at Sochi 2014
2014-03-17SYDNEY, Australia – With a global audience of billions of people from over 200 countries, it was Fairlight technology that delivered the audio for the spectacular opening and closing ceremonies at the Fisht Stadium of the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics at Sochi, Russia.
The full design and direction of audio systems and services for these events was managed by Auditoria Pty. Ltd. from Sydney, Australia. Auditoria has delivered audio and communications systems for some of the world’s largest live and broadcast performance events.
An event like Sochi requires reliability, speed and seamless integration with other production elements in order to provide an excellent audience experience. Among the equipment chosen for these high profile shows were two identical turnkey Fairlight editing and playback systems, each consisting of two XSTREAM desktop controllers, two workstation PC’s, two SX-20 I/O units and XE-6 Faders.
Auditoria director Scott Willsallen commented from Sochi, “The elegance, simplicity and robustness of the Fairlight systems in use here in Sochi are second to none. Whilst our primary usage of the system is for dual-redundant A/B playback, our workflow also includes creating QuickTime movies for technical programmers and choreographers. The Fairlight platform gives us the buss count and flexibility to deliver stems for FOH & monitors, broadcast mixes, sound design content stems and backup vocal stems as well as the Quicktime movies, all within one session with complete A/B-roll capability and fully backed up on a second system. The XSTREAM controller is fully configurable and offers the fastest, most user-friendly interface available. I am in the unique position on these projects where I can nominate any product the market has to offer – when it comes to playback, I choose Fairlight.”
The Fairlight systems on-site were fully operated by veteran head audio editor and playback engineer Steve Logan.
Steve Logan added, “In any live event, but especially one of this magnitude and importance, reliability is paramount. This is why we always choose Fairlight for our audio requirements – because we know that, with Fairlight, we simply won’t have any problems.”