The League of Legends World Championship, an annual electronic sports (esports) championship tournament hosted by Riot Games, played out at the Sangnam World Cup Stadium in Seoul, South Korea this year. Top League of Legends teams from Asia, Europe and North America came together to compete for the championship title, the 70 pound Summoner’s Cup, and the $1,000,000 champion prize.
Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends – a multiplayer online battle arena video game – tapped 3G Productions to handle audio and video production for the event. 3G Productions in turn worked with Rhinosound, one of South Korea’s largest sound rental companies, for their sound reinforcement needs.
Rhinosound delivered a 32 cabinet EAW Anya PA, 40 SB subs and a slew of KF730/740s for front fill and extra delays to meet the needs of the event attended by 40,000 people and streamed to another 40 million online.
The opening ceremony was befitting of a world class event with a number of Korean traditional drummers, an orchestra and special guests Imagine Dragons, who were visiting South Korea for the first time. For closing the popular indy rock band played their most popular hits for the in-person and online crowd.
The biggest challenge that 3G’s Will Taylor faced was determining where to place the PA. It was important to keep the SPL levels on the stage to a minimum in order for the gamers to hear the shoutcasters. Because of the size of the stage, placing them left-right in front of the stage interfered with audience sightlines. Taylor worked with EAW’s product support team to create a design that positioned the Anya arrays behind the stage and kept the sound levels on the stage low.
Fortunately, Anya receives system parameters via EAW’s Resolution 2 software. The process of tweaking the system did not involve dropping the PA to make adjustments, instead the engineers changed some of the numbers, uploaded the new settings and the system was adjusted to suit the client’s needs.
“The ease in which the system can be modified without a lot of work was particularly advantageous at this event,” notes James Bamlett, EAW Asia. “We were easily able to make adjustments until the sound was exactly where the clients wanted it, and it was simple to do. It is one of the most spectacular features of EAW’s Adaptive Performance gear.”
Once the parameters are input into EAW’s Resolution software, the Anya arrays produce asymmetrical output that delivers coherent, full-frequency range response across the entire coverage area as defined by the user. In this case, the coverage area was the audience seating, not the stage, and the system performed flawlessly.
“Rhinosound was the local provider for the audio system,” concludes Will Nealie, audio consultant for the event. “Anya was the right technology for the application. Set up time was short, throw distance was long, and expectation was high. Anya met all of the requirements. The players, fans and everyone there had a fantastic time.”
