Paris celebrated this year’s Bastille Day with a concert on the Champs du Mars at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Le Concert de Paris 2021 featured the Orchestre National de France and the Chœur de Radio France, along with internationally renowned soloists.
This annual concert, in pre-pandemic days, was one of the largest classical music events, with as many as 500,000 spectators on-site, followed by a traditional fireworks display. This year, the show had a live audience of 15,000 people, and was broadcast to 3.5 million TV viewers in France and an estimated 10 million in Europe.
The live and broadcast sound production was handled by Lawo mc² consoles. Lawo explained that the FOH console used for the orchestra mix was a 48-fader mc²56 production console. A 48-fader mc²56 took over the monitor tasks in a setup, and a 16-fader mc² extender allowed social distancing between the two operators.
An Optocore fiber-optic network deployed by Radio France for the live sound system connected the event’s mixing consoles and I/O systems.
In addition, Lawo said, separate preamp control for FOH and monitors and a split to the mc²66 console used for the broadcast mix in a Radio France OB vehicle allowed the operators to use the on-air console’s own stageboxes and DALLIS mic preamps.
“It is a great honor for Lawo to be trusted, year after year, by Radio France for such a prestigious event as the provider of the audio mixing consoles for both the public address and broadcast signals,” said Joffrey Heyraud, Lawo sales director France. This was the seventh year Lawo equipment supported the event’s sound requirements.