Mixing sound through down fills and main bowls can be a great challenge. The variety of events in modern sports stadiums require the sound system to be versatile, have great coverage and adequate amplification.
It’s critical in sporting events for the attendees to hear announcements and field referee’s calls. It’s tempting to turn the field mics up too much but often less is more. Two bad things can happen if the down fills are too loud, the referee mic feeds back and they are distracted by the sound making them unintelligible. In an exciting sporting event, the crowd reaches well over 100 decibels and it is a great challenge to get the field mics over the crowd.
A well designed digital signal processor (DSP) program can be your best friend. Having capability to adjust levels of zones and eq will help you greatly as well as accommodate situations where the field is utilized for something other than sporting events like concerts, exhibitions or races.
Mixing events in stadiums can be a lot of fun and very gratifying for the audience and board op if done correctly.
