Arcadia is Surprise Guest at “America’s Biggest Birthday Party” Parade in St. Louis

The Fourth of July Independence Day holiday in the United States has traditionally been marked as the biggest summertime event, filled with parades, fireworks, 烧烤和花时间与家人和朋友.  The flurry of activity in every town across the nation is that of excitement as a full day of events captivates people of all ages. In the heartland, 在密西西比河和密苏里河的汇合处, you will find what has been dubbed as “America’s Biggest Birthday Party,在闹市区的大门拱门的阴影下举行. Louis.

This multi-day event kicks off with a fair that brings in renowned artists including Elton John, 黑眼豆豆和多莉·帕顿, to name a few. 但引起全国关注的并不是这些艺术家, 真正吸引人们的是7月4日的游行, 因为它在全国范围内播出, 全国各地的人们都可以收听! 刚刚过去的7月4日在圣. Louis was of special importance to 十大正规体育平台 as we had the privilege of showcasing the new Arcadia Central Station during the national broadcast of the parade. 当您考虑此事件工作流的复杂性时, there are some hurdles to overcome to ensure proper communications between the many entities involved.

首先是集市街. Louis crew who manages the route and positioning of the parade floats. This massive team of volunteers manages their communication with two-way radios due to the sheer scale of the parade route, 可以到达20到30个街区外的广播亭.

You then have the OB truck and crew which are producing the nationwide broadcast feed. OB卡车配备了对讲机矩阵框架和面板, 所有的节目都预先安排好了，准备在早上播出.

Communications are most difficult to manage outside the OB truck where the broadcast box is located. 这个区域是固定和移动摄像机的主要地点, and it is where the live entertainment portion of the production takes place.

The above images capture the closing act of the parade which was shown on the broadcast as well as to a live audience. This “stage,” or broadcast box, requires all production staff to be on the same page and communicate without delay, 阿卡迪亚中央车站最耀眼的地方是哪里. Not only do you have the opening and closing acts cycling through this area, but Fair St. 路易斯也有其他几辆带有音乐表演的花车.  就像你在其他全国联合游行上看到的一样, the music bed (and quite often the singers) are played out on a stationary sound system for 现场观众和广播. This is done to ensure that the audio feed is clean and reduces the chances of something going wrong on-air.

在幕后，它可能是混乱的! You have the audio engineers who queue the music and feed it to the performers, 现场观众和广播. You also have the roaming cameras, including a drone showing live aerial views. 这些人负责管理游行的表演者和舞者.  You also have the broadcast producers who are roaming around snagging live interviews and ensuring that the parade is moving along as needed. Every role mentioned, and many more requires un-fettered communication back to the broadcast truck to ensure proper timing. 没有FreeSpeak II的漫游功能, 整合到阿卡迪亚中央车站, 这是不可能发生的, 演出的一些元素也会散架.

Now for a little background into why this live field trial of the Arcadia Central Station was so important for myself, Fair St. Louis and 十大正规体育平台…

In my previous life before 十大正规体育平台, I was a broadcast engineer at KMOV-TV in St. Louis and had the privilege of working alongside some of the best broadcast engineers in the business. 差不多十年了, KMOV-TV has broadcasted the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving Day Parades every year. The awesome crew at KMOV who taught me so much of what I know today has always put on an amazing production, but the one thing we seemed to always be lacking in a bit was the wireless communications along the parade route. For that reason, 我非常兴奋地向大家介绍阿卡迪亚中央车站, with FreeSpeak II wireless beltpacks deployed all around the broadcast box and OB trucks, onto the scene.

活动结束后, I spoke to local IATSE audio engineers Brian Marten and Casey Hunter to get their thoughts on the system and here’s what they had to say:

设置这个很容易, has great flexibility, 与但丁这样的系统的融合是惊人的! 你可以添加收发器, Dante, 2-wire, 4-wire, 和任何其他音频端点, 对于现场制作来说是很棒的.

-Casey Hunter

用户界面更加友好 比先前的迭代. 你很容易就能找到你需要的东西，而不仅仅是在前面的菜单上 也在新的CCM中. 我也喜欢你可以连接这么多其他设备.  这是十大正规体育平台一直想要的!

-Brian Marten

对我个人来说，这是多么有趣的一天啊, 我要感谢我在KMOV的老同事们, Switch and Fair街. 路易让我出来做现场试验. I look forward to bringing Arcadia back next year equipped with even more bells and whistles!

Justin Emge是十大正规体育平台的应用工程经理. Previously, 贾斯汀是一名广播工程师, Technical Director, 哥伦比亚广播十大正规体育平台摄影师和运营经理在圣. Louis, MO. He also worked laterally with Kaufman Broadcast as a Broadcast Engineer during large sporting and news events. Justin oversees the Application Engineers for North and South America.