Hosted for the first time on this scale by The City and County of Swansea Special Events Team; the Wales Air Show was a two day event based over a stretch of prom linking the two main sites of the show. The first site was the Cenotaph to the west which featured a huge variety of aviation themed stalls, stands and exhibits while the second site to the east: the Swansea Civic Centre hosted a fairground, hospitality to the dignitaries and the main commentator.

The main challenge to Magnum’s engineers was to cover both sites and the 1km link in-between. On a green-field site this would still be a challenge but on a site that was only partially closed to the public there were many obstacles to overcome. It was decided that re-entrant horn speakers were the best method to distribute sound over such a vast site. Each of the two main sites were covered in the usual way with horn speakers placed at vantage points including Doughty Strata and Zenith stands as well as directly onto the Outside Broadcast Centre also provided by Magnum. To cover the prom that linked the two sites, we added a further 8 Strata stands every 100 meters, each containing two Atlas CJ46 horns with 30w drivers. These were fenced in during the event.

It was decided that a 100V line signal would be sent from the amplification area in the east site to power the entire run of horns along the prom. For this to be successful high quality cable was used to link the system to ensure losses in voltage were as calculated. At the end of this run, the signal was attenuated and delivered to the west site amp racks for local distribution. As mentioned, the commentator was based in the east site but there were challenges here also. To provide the commentator with the best view of the site, he was based in an office at the top floor of the Civic Centre. The Centre is a fairly modern building which relies on climate control systems for ventilation so windows are not designed to be opened. With the alternative having to run hundreds of meters of cabling down stairwells etc, we decided on a Sennheiser wireless link from the office to the PA control point below. The link was made up of an IEM transmitter and radio mic receiver and worked faultlessly even during bad weather.