Meyer Sound News : Meyer Sound Marches in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Meyer Sound Marches in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

"The UPA is about the most intelligible speaker you can get, and it works great. We use them for the Macy's parade every year."

- Domonic Sack, Sound System Designer, Sound Associates

It's billed as the longest running show on Broadway. Begun in 1924, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has become a tradition among children, parents and grandparents, with an estimated 2.5 million lining the streets and 44 million more tuning in on television. The parade even plays a key role in the plot of the film "Miracle on 34th Street," a holiday classic itself. It's an annual morning of rollicking excitement, and out on the street the noise level can't be turned down like on TV. After 18 years of providing sound for the parade, however, Yonkers-based Sound Associates understands how to manage the mayhem.

The city's topography presents some unique challenges in keeping sound reinforcement for the parade above the din without blowing away nearby residents. "You could shoot a line array down Columbus Circle and probably cover a couple of blocks, but the folks across the street wouldn't appreciate it," remarks Sound Associates' Domonic Sack. In the acoustical confines of Manhattan's canyons, Sack explains, smaller is better. Sack ensures that coverage is evenly distributed throughout two key locations by using over 50 loudspeakers from Meyer Sound.

At the parade's start, the floats, balloons and participants assemble in the meadows of Central Park West between 77th and 81st Streets. At the Museum of Natural History across the street, several dozen "lollipops" — six- and 10-foot steel poles with UPA-1A compact wide coverage loudspeakers on top — are lashed securely to the museum's decades-old wrought iron fence. "All the speakers point out, away from the museum," Sack explains. "We've got about 15 or 16 UPA's on the downtown side of 77th Street and Central Park West, and about another 24 around the museum." A pair of MSL-4 horn-loaded long-throw loudspeakers fills the intersection at 77th Street.

The museum's participation in the event is critical. "This parade just couldn't go off without the museum, and we try to be very respectful to them," Sack observes. The area between 77th and 81st Streets is a crucial one for the parade, with major entry and exit points, the starting line, parade marshal and requisite security. This makes communication vital. The parade's sound designer, Randy Hansen, requires a system that is both intelligible and dependable.

"For a few years back in the late 80s they tried using a 70 volt distributed system, but it always went out (of commission) and they ended up on bullhorns," Sack recalls. "We came up with a system everyone likes. There's no base on the lollipops for anyone to trip over, and they shoot just above people's heads. No one tries to shimmy up the pole, and we don't need a ladder to adjust them." Although Sound Associates draws on their extensive stock of self-powered Meyer Sound loudspeakers for most events, Sack uses legacy, traditionally-powered cabinets for the Macy's parade to avoid having numerous AC power lines running through the tremendous crowds.

Two other locations calling for sound reinforcement are the parade's end at 34th Street and 8th Avenue, and NBC's traditional broadcast perch in front of Herald Square. A mix of UPA-1A and UPM-1 UltraSeries reinforcement loudspeakers handle those tasks, as well as getting sound to the thousands gathered in front of Macy's Department Store. At the starting line, a pair of M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeakers are pulling duty as broadcast monitors.

While much of the work uptown is handled the day before the parade, the other locations make that far less practical. Nothing is loaded in downtown, where Sound Associates' Erich Bechtel oversees the sound, until six in the morning, when the entire system is set up before the waiting crowds.

Unique challenges call for unique solutions, and delivering quality audio to a crowd of millions in the streets of Manhattan takes a special set of skills and the right equipment. Despite being a legacy product in this age of self-powered line arrays, Sack points out that the UPAs continue, after many years, to be just the right tool for this job. "Using the smaller speakers really maximizes the coverage in a local area, which is exactly what we need here," he explains. "The UPA is about the most intelligible speaker you can get, and it works great. We use them every year."

December, 2005