Turbosound at Round Square

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II opened the annual Round Square Conference, hosted by Wellington College, at the end of ; the UK production company Subfrantic was asked to provide a professional sound reinforcement in the shape of a Turbosound Flex Array system.

Round Square is a world-wide association, founded by educational philosopher Kurt Hahn, consisting of more than 80 schools on five continents sharing unique and ambitious goals from academic excellence to personal development, encouraging participation in community service, work projects, exchange programs and adventuring.

The annual conference is a week-long affair packed every day with events, workshops, presentations, and meetings, and was opened by HRH Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of York, and the King of Greece. Daytime highlights over the course of the week included keynote speeches from sporting celebrities Colin Jackson, Karen Darke, Melodie Hussaine, and Jasmine Whitbread, followed in the evening by a series of musical and theatrical events: Performing Beyond Our Limits, a children's' open mic night, and Dancing Beyond Our Culture, a Cool Britannia evening, and the Last night of the Proms, featuring the Wellington Philharmonic Orchestra.

With such a variety of acts and events the sound system had to be equally versatile, and so the rig designed by Subfrantic's Sean Murphy consisted of 12 Turbosound Flex Array TFA-600HW wide dispersion mid/high cabinets, eight Aspect TA-890L double 15" subs, and eight TFM-450 neodymium 15" two-way floor monitors. Murphy mixed the entire week's events on a DiGiCo SD8, and reports that Flex Array again exceeded his expectations: "As always, Flex performed above and beyond what was expected," he said, "During the party nights it delivered eye-shaking bass with cutting highs -- which had the audience up on the seats shouting for more - while the orchestral reinforcement was warm and delicate without being overpowering.

"For the keynote speakers the vocal clarity and feedback rejection was second to none, delivering ample volume even though the speakers were flown quite far back and quite low. All in all, Flex Array once again proved itself to be an amazing all-rounder in a way I have never heard another box come close to."