A pantomime wish comes true with the V7P.
As the cast of Aladdin took to the stage at the UK’s Birmingham Hippodrome for the final time on 31st January 2016, the production celebrated record audience numbers. Nearly 120,000 during its six week, seventy four performance run - the best at the venue for fourteen years. The star studded pantomime featured Marti Pellow, Julian Clary, Lee Mead and Matt Slack, with sound design by Gareth Owen.
Owen elected to include the new d&b V7P point source system for the stage foldback - the first time it had been deployed on the UK stage for this application. The sound, communication systems and support were provided by London based Orbital Sound, responsible for the pantomime season at the Birmingham Hippodrome for the past fifteen years.
Associate sound designer Russ Godwin explained the choice of loudspeaker: “We wanted to use a system that we knew would work, especially given the stars we were working with and their very particular preferences for foldback. Steve Jones at the d&b GB office assured us that the V7P was ‘the box’ for the job, so despite not having heard it we specified it for the stage monitoring.”
The main PA comprised a combination of T-Series and V-Series cabinets, with Q-SUBs, and E-Series boxes for fills and delays. Eight V7Ps were deployed for the stage monitoring, with E8s on the front line. The system was powered by the d&b dual channel D6 and D12 amplifiers and the four channel D20.
“The V7P is extremely flat and we could work them really hard, which was exactly what we needed for an artist such as Marti Pellow. Very little EQ or work was needed at all,” concluded Godwin, “they just sounded great, and everyone was very happy with the results.”
