Cohedra in Austria

30 November 2004

Austria - HK Audio's Cohedra (Coherent Dynamic Response Array) system has been used by theatrical PA rental company Showtime in Austria for a large-scale musical production, Coming Home. "Cohedra is now gaining a good reputation in Austria as it's been used for many corporate shows such as 100 Years of Kleine Zeitung in Graz, the Gackern culinary event in St Andrä, as well as for the leading TV show Wetten Das," says Roman Wieser from HK Audio's Austrian distribution company, eXact. "Showtime's production manager Christian Polster had heard a lot of good things about Cohedra and wanted to test the system. This wasn't going to be an easy project as the show featured more than 130 artists, an orchestra, band and vocalists, so they decided that it would be the perfect challenge for Cohedra. He was very satisfied with the results, both for the ease with which it can be rigged, and also for its sound."

Polster adds: "The biggest advantage of using the Cohedra system for this event was its light weight; we also liked the exact dispersion of the system and the accurate, transparent sound."

A mix of international, pannonical folk music, classical music and theatre, Coming Home featured an Austrian choir and the Hungarian orchestra Savaria, conducted by Christian Kolonovits, who as well as being the conductor of the VSOP (Vienna Symphonic Orchestra Project) is also a famous musician in Austria.

The musical was staged at the Burgenlandhalle exhibition centre in Oberwart, which has a capacity of around 2,000 people. A 2x8 Cohedra system - four each of the Cohedra CDR 208 T and S mid/high cabinets per side positioned alternately, together with 16 Cohedra CDR 210 Sub subwoofers ground-stacked under the 28m wide stage, was used for the duration of the show, which ran for five performances. eXact's system technician Ing. Thomas Hasenauer used Cohedra software to enable precision alignment of the mid/ high array and achieve the best possible audio results and optimal SPL distribution.

(Lee Baldock)