The Korean K-Pop phenomenon celebrates itself every year at the Golden Disc Awards, staged in Seoul. Audio Production Provider for seven years, Way Audio has tamed the huge space that is the Gocheok SkyDome, using a large modular PA system, the STM Series from NEXO.
K-POP took the USA by storm in 2018, after boyband BTS filled baseball stadia in Los Angeles and New York, with their loyal fanbase, the ARMY. Every January, this awards ceremony is held; the Golden Disk Awards event featured performances by many big names of K-Pop in the domed baseball stadium that houses 25,000 K-Pop fans, broadcast live by JTBC.
The Sky Dome is one of Korea’s largest indoor venues, and the largest-capacity stadium. Designed to evoke the shape and movement dynamics of a baseball, the structure presented huge acoustic challenges for sound reinforcement. However, local Production Rental house Way Audio has serviced many large concert events at Gocheok, with Yun Cheol Lee tailoring his system designs to perform perfectly in the huge stadium.
“The reverberation time and reflections created inside the venue, with its high roof, caused a lot of problems for visiting audio rental companies,” explained James Lee, MD of AWorks, distributor of NEXO Sound Reinforcement equipment in South Korea. “Do Gil Kim and Joon Ho Kang (of the Way Audio team) used NEXO’s modelling and prediction software tools, to get a pleasing result in this location.”
NEXO’s modular line array was a key component of Way Audio’s success, running over a Dante network it was highly controllable thanks to the NeMo software suite. Set up with a main PA comprising 15 sets of M46 main and NEXO B112 bass modules, with M28 downfills, the system also used the smaller M28 cabinets as 4-point delays, and as frontfills. All stage monitoring was provided by NEXO PS15 cabinets.
All channel signals were mixed at FOH by Joon Ho Kang, Way Audio’s General Manager, before being sent to the OB van for JTBC’s live broadcast. “The STM system is very versatile and multi-purpose,” confirmed Lee, “it is ideal for rock ‘n’ roll as well as K-pop, and Way Audio is always busy with it, getting many enquiries from the K-Pop world as well as other entertainment companies.”
