The Laureus World Sports Awards –Supported by AURUS

New OB truck equipped with large AURUS audio-control workplace makes its debut at the Laureus Awards

St. Petersburg, in February 2008: »And the winner is: Roger Federer!« Those words were spoken when the Laureus World Sports Awards 2008 were celebrated in the large concert hall of the Governmental Academic Mariinsky Theatre at St. Petersburg on 18 February 2008. Starting in 2000, the awards (that are known as the sports Oscar) are annually presented to the sportsman and the sportswoman of the year, and the ceremony has become one of the big events in international sports.

Live broadcasting of the Laureus Awards ceremony was realised using a very special OB truck: the Mariinsky Theatre’s own HDTV vehicle, which had just been delivered. This vehicle is special not only because it is probably the only OB truck worldwide that is owned by a theatre; an equally important aspect is that the focus during the planning stage was on perfect audio quality.

This becomes apparent from the remarkably large audio-control facility — the biggest one ever installed into an OB truck by system integrator Sony Professional Services UK. The workplace occupies about a third of the overall space inside the large vehicle and is packed with STAGETEC technology. Thanks to the size of the audio-control workplace and the AURUS’ compact dimensions, a 48-fader console could be installed in a way that an accurate 5.1 monitoring environment could be accomplished. In order to provide enough channels for producing even the largest events in multichannel formats, the AURUS includes maximum DSP power — for up to 300 audio channels! A big NEXUS STAR audio router connects the console to the extensive audio network, which consists of five stationary NEXUS Base Devices plus two mobile ones used as stage boxes.

With a successful production of the Laureus Awards ceremony watched by an estimated billion spectators in 83 countries worldwide, the concept of that extraordinary OB vehicle has indeed proven beneficial. Obviously, there are many ways in how modern technology leads sportsmen to success!