Meyer Sound News : Meyer Fills Largest Order in Company History: Expo '98 in Lisbon

Meyer Fills Largest Order in Company History: Expo '98 in Lisbon

"Expo '98 is a tremendous adventure for us. After our bid for 16 stages at Expo was selected, we shipped about three 38-ton truckloads of gear to Portugal."

- Jean-David Rodriguez
Dispatch

Nearly 500 Meyer Sound loudspeakers are being used for sound reinforcement at the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition (Expo '98). Five years in the planning, this international extravaganza features participation from almost 150 nations and runs from May 22 through September 30. Over 300 loudspeakers from the new Self-Powered UltraSeries join a variety of other Meyer Self-Powered and conventionally powered equipment shipped to Portugal from all corners of the globe for the Expo.

Daniel Leon, the audio designer and coordinator for the Expo, contacted several European production companies last year about involvement in the six-month long celebration. Dispatch, Meyer's French distributor, provided the bulk of the Meyer equipment. The order represents the largest single sale in Meyer Sound's history.

"Expo '98 is a tremendous adventure for us," comments Jean-David Rodriguez of Dispatch. "After our bid for 16 stages at Expo was selected, we shipped about three 38-ton truckloads of gear to Portugal." The equipment includes 158 UPA-1P loudspeakers, 100 UM-100P and 50 UM-1P monitors, 78 USW-1P subwoofers, 40 MSL-4 loudspeakers, and 20 PSW-2 subwoofers.

"Now we're supplying a 24-hour a day, seven-day a week service team to the event," adds Rodriguez. "With as many as 70 shows per day, technical problems need to be solved with lightning speed." Miguel Lourtie, of Portuguese company Audio Pro Live, is acting as Dispatch's representative in Lisbon for the duration of Expo.

Meyer dealers from around the world are providing loudspeakers for many of the pavilions dotting the exposition site, which covers a 60-hectare area in eastern Lisbon and stretches for 5 kilometers along the Tagus river. The pavilions host thousands of musical, theatrical, and film events organized around the Expo's theme, "The Oceans, A Heritage for the Future." These shows supplement blockbuster Expo attractions like the $65 million dollar "Oceanarium" aquarium, the largest of its kind in Europe.

Expo personnel and engineers from Dispatch, Meyer Sound Europe, and Audio Pro Live worked closely this spring to coordinate design and set-up of the Meyer systems. In March tests were conducted to ensure that the system for Aquamatrix, a show which runs all six months of the expo, would not disturb the animals housed in the neighboring Oceanarium. The system for the waterfront show consists of 44 - MSL-4 Self-Powered loudspeakers and 22 - 650-P Self-Powered subwoofers set on a barge in a man-made marina.

The largest system at the Expo is in Sony Plaza. Dispatch supplied the system, which consists of UPA-1P loudspeakers, paired with USW-1P subwoofers, and MSL-4 loudspeakers, paired with PSW-2 subwoofers. UM-1P and UM-100Ps provide on-stage monitoring for the Plaza. Numerous smaller stages throughout the Expo grounds use UPA-1P/USW-P systems.

Additional Meyer cabinets came from across the Atlantic Ocean and from as far away as the Pacific Rim. Solotech, a Canadian sound company whose clients include Celine Dion and Cirque du Soleil, provided an MSL-5 loudspeaker system for use in the Utopia show. , Meyer's Korean distributor, supplied an all Self-Powered surround system for a 3-D film about Korea. The system for the Korea Center consists of four CQ-1 loudspeakers, two 650-P subwoofers, 10 HM-1 loudspeakers, three CP-10 parametric equalizers, and one LD-1A line driver.

August, 1998