When Pope Francis visited South America in September 2018, full service native rental company, Línea Estrategica, provided the audio system for his visit to Colombia, where over a million faithful braved rain and fog for the pontiff’s outdoor mass.
Held on the Olaya Herrera Airport in the city of Medellin, the 3rd stop on his 5-day visit to the country. Ensuring even coverage across the site, which stretched to 1km in length and 200m in width, required meticulous planning and a vast L-Acoustics system that totalled over 300 cabinets.
Linea Estrategica used L-Acoustics proprietary 3D sound system design programme, Soundvision, to devise a system of 24 distributed arrays along the runway, each comprising 12 K2 topped with a K1-SB sub, plus 5 arrays of 10 Kara.
“We had to cover an area that was a kilometre long by 800 metres wide and held around 1.7 million people,” said Conrado Santamaría Polo, manager at Línea Estrategica. “We decided to use L-Acoustics because it is the most complete and best defined system for such large events, choosing a combination of K2, K1 Subs, V-DOSC and Kara cabinets.”
With the assistance of L-Acoustics’ Alex Soto and Marco Pineda and again using Soundvision, Polo and the Línea Estrategica team devised a distributed PA that would cover the vast site, with a hang of 12 K2s topped with a K1-SB sub either side of the stage, plus 10 hangs of 10 K2 with 2 K1-SB subs, 5 hangs of 10 V-DOSC and 10 towers of 10 Kara cabinets positioned across the front of the stage at 50 metre intervals.
“The L-Acoustics systems were impeccable and exactly what we needed for the challenges we faced with both events and, having tested it to the full in Ecuador, we had absolute confidence that it was the right solution for this year’s event,” explained Polo. “The organisers for the Medellin event were impressed with the performance of the K2 system, as well as the service provided by Linea Estratégica, and the audience enjoyed being able to hear every word the pontiff delivered on this visit to South America.”
