Presented by Semmel Concerts and accompanied by breathtaking lighting, sound and stage technology from Satis & Fy, this smash-hit show delighted more than 22,000 fans at 15 sold-out concerts from 23 January to 2 March.
The world premiere of “The World of Hans Zimmer – An Immersive Symphony. The Theatre Experience” took the audience at the Metronom Theatre in Oberhausen on an impressive musical journey through the works of this exceptional film composer. Hans Zimmer himself spoke to the audience in the form of a larger-than-life, three-dimensional projected image. Behind the scenes, monitor engineer Thorben Ströhlein and RF manager Werner Schmidl also welcomed a special technical guest: Sennheiser’s Spectera, which they used to provide some of the musicians with in-ear and line/mic signals as part of the Spectera Pioneer Program.
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Contact with the Pioneer Program was brought about by Holger Schwark, who was the FOH engineer and, together with Colin Pink and Christian Steinhäuser, was also the sound designer for this unique music production curated by Hans Zimmer.
The World of Hans Zimmer
This led to Per Witte from Sennheiser bringing a Sennheiser Spectera Base Station and a dozen bidirectional 1.4 GHz bodypacks along to the rehearsals in Oberhausen in January – together with a technical introduction into the system provided by Gerhard Spyra, Technical Application Engineer.
Monitor engineer Ströhlein laughs: “You could say, perhaps, that we were thrown in at the deep end because we didn’t have all that much time to prepare. But actually, it wasn’t a problem at all, because the system was relatively easy to set up.” Premiere for the technology – and for the RF manager
One notable feature of this Spectera test was the fact that it was Werner Schmidl’s first ever job as RF manager. “I’m normally responsible for the FOH system, which is something I did for Peter Maffay, for example, for many years. Of course, during my career I also had to take care of wireless systems now and again. But this is actually my very first major assignment as RF manager. At the venue, I scanned the RF environment using a Spectera antenna and finding the frequencies was no problem at all. It’s all very easy!”
“And that’s also true of the bodypacks: it’s all very user-friendly,” Ströhlein adds. “Just put the batteries in and off you go!”
The four DAD antennas were placed directly at the LED curtains that gave the stage an immersive spatiality and drew both the musicians and the audience into fascinating worlds of light and video with Sennheiser.
Keep watching, reading and more about the immersive experience here.
