Riedel gives a new twist to the communications of the Global Citizen Festival

Firehouse implemented the Artist digital matrix intercom network Riedel with the Bolero wireless system for this event held in New York.

The designer, touring sound reinforcement system installer and operator, broadcasts and corporate events, Firehouse Productions has chosen Riedel Communications to change the dynamics of the show in the tenth edition of the Global Citizen Festival from New York.

Firehouse implemented digital matrix intercom network Artist Riedel's latest generation wireless system Bolero as a plug and play solution to integrate and extend the range of a mobile unit using a legacy communication system.

The Artist and Bolero systems provided clear and reliable communications in Great Lawn of Central Park, including communications with drones and helicopters via RiFace by Riedel.

With performances by Metallica, Mariah Carey y Jonas Brothers, Global Citizen is an annual music festival that brings together fans, artists, world leaders, philanthropists and business executives to take action to end poverty. Timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly, the event took place last 24 September.

“For the Global Citizen Festival, “We were covering a large area of ​​the Great Lawn and needed a solution capable of large scale with clear and reliable communication to connect to the mobile unit”, explains Vinny Siniscal, account manager at Firehouse Productions. “To make this quick and easy, The solution had to be integrated with the sistema RTS inherited, while also allowing communications to and from helicopters and drones. Bolero with a Artist 1024 It was the ideal option, as it is easy to configure and offers a practically unlimited scale of communications as needed”.

At the heart of Firehouse Productions' Riedel system were four Artist intercom nodes: an Artist-1024, one Artist-128 and two Artist-64.

Artist platform integrated with Bolero wireless intercom system, which consisted of 54 Bolero wireless hip flasks, in addition to 40 digital with C3 cable. To incorporate helicopter and drone communications into the system, two RiFace universal radio interfaces were used. For ease of use, they trusted 34 Riedel intercom panels, half of which were RSP-1200 series SmartPanels.

“The festival presented considerable challenges in providing communications, but Riedel's Artist and Bolero systems not only provided an optimal solution, but also reduced configuration and activation time”, clarify Brian Hurst, lead programmer and systems integrator at Firehouse Productions.

The systems were plug and play. All you had to do was connect the fiber and return to the Artist nodes on the production truck, that interconnected with their old communication system and allowed two MADI streams of 64 canales. Besides, Artist-1024's ability to handle up to 128 Bolero packs on a single universal interface card reduced the effort of configuring and wiring the system.

“This was a huge implementation that highlighted several key benefits of our Artist and Bolero systems, mainly the perfect integration with different communications systems, plug and play setup and the ability to clearly handle large, noisy events. We can't wait to see how Firehouse Productions uses Artist and Bolero next.", concludes Joyce Bente, President and CEO of Riedel Communications America.