L-ISA sound is game changer at first Olympic Esports Week

The opening and closing ceremonies at the first-ever Olympic Esports Week were presented in L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound.

The four-day event, which was held at Singapore’s Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre, featured console, mobile and PC games, as well as VR sports such as taekwondo, cycling and archery.

The production was overseen by local live-event and theatre company, Presplay, which tasked sound designer Jeffrey Yue of Ctrl Fre@k with creating the sonic atmosphere

“The stage design included three massive LED screens stretching across the entire width of the main stage,” says Yue. “My sound system design needed to complement these elements without interfering with audience sightlines.”

He knew that lengthy arrays of loudspeakers in a left/right configuration would not provide optimal coverage to the wide audience seating area. Yue also needed to contend with the hall’s height limitations.

These challenges sparked an opportunity for Yue to design an L-ISA immersive loudspeaker configuration, using smaller hangs spread above the wide screens, giving the opening and closing ceremonies the full benefit of spatial sound and creating an immersive atmosphere worthy of the best gaming experience.

The ceremonies featured in-person and virtual speeches from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Singaporean dignitaries, alongside dance performances and musical sets.

Yue knew that L-ISA spatial technology would deliver an impressive audio fit for an audience accustomed to the latest audio and visual technology. “If we think about audio in gaming today, it’s immersive,” he says. “All gamers, even at home, rely on a combination of music and sound effects that fly around them in their headsets throughout the game. So it’s only natural to present immersive audio to a live gaming audience.”

He proposed a system design that featured a main scene system of five hangs of one L‑Acoustics A15 Focus and Wide each, with four KS21 subwoofers flown in the centre. Nine L-Acoustics X12 boxes surrounded the audience seating area for a 360° immersive audio experience. J5 Productions provided and implemented the entire system. 

Content was prepared using L-ISAStudio on Yue’s laptop, with his mixes then taken to the L-ISA Auditoria at Concept Systems, an L-Acoustics certified provider distributor in Singapore. Yue began crafting the immersive mix while the main stage was in construction, before finalising it at the venue on the L-Acoustics A Series-based L-ISA configuration. 

“I was confident that the system would deliver dynamic sound for the different content needs of both esports and the event programmes,” says Yue. 

Presplay’s creative director, Beatrice Chia-Richmond, says: “Yue’s technical expertise in crafting creative audio solutions for this inaugural global esporting event allowed us to fulfil the requirements of the IOC and wow audiences.”