Sonic spectacular: advice from audio experts

Spectacles, whether big or small, wouldn’t be believable without sound. We talk to audio experts from various fields, discovering the tools and techniques helping them achieve the incredible

Words Katie Kasperson

In our visually driven world, audio often takes the back seat. But while video might well have killed the radio star, sound is equally capable of evoking a feeling or defining a multi-sensory live event. In other words, it can produce results just as spectacular.

According to Andy Davies, senior director of product management at Meyer Sound, a sonic spectacle is “anything that goes above and beyond to create an audience experience – particularly one they weren’t expecting.

“It’s something that wows people,” adds Davies, whether it be live music, theatre, an exhibition or other attraction.

“It isn’t about volume or an impressive PA,” explains Marcus Blight, technical application engineer for pro audio at Sennheiser. “It’s about an emotional connection, in which the technology disappears and the audience becomes fully immersed.” Blight believes the best live shows feel effortless. “Every vocal is intelligible, every instrument has space, every audience member gets the same impact,” he explains. “That consistency turns a great performance into a memorable spectacle.”

Forward planning

Most sensory experiences, whether big or small, don’t revolve around just sight or sound but a perfect blend where they complement each other. “These things never start with the audio design; they start with a concept,” says Davies. “The true nature of spectacle is when all the different departments and ideas come together. It’s about the whole.”

The planning stage, then, is especially significant. “Preparation is everything,” argues Blight. “Long before the audience arrives, I’m already thinking about radio frequency, spectrum availability, antenna placement, redundancy, monitoring and network infrastructure. Resilience matters as much as great audio quality.”

Dean Mizzi, FOH engineer at Clair Global, believes that the audio design stage is ‘equal parts utility and creativity’. “There are certain things I need to build in,” he says. “The boring stuff is, ‘How am I feeding the PA? Who needs a feed of the mix during the show? Which stems am I going to send to broadcast?’

“Creatively, you’re thinking about how you’re going to achieve the sound you’re looking for – how you’re going to structure your buses, which flavour of compressor you’re using on the star vocal, what reverb works best for the flute solo,” and everything in between.

“A spectacle is more a creative choice than a technical one,” adds Davies, “but it always has to start in the planning stage – and you’ve got to have the right tools to achieve it.”

Hidden in plain sight

These tools must lend themselves to crucial considerations like consistency, quality, practicality and reliability – but the technology itself should fade into the background, letting the experience take centre stage. “The best engineering often goes unnoticed,” Blight suggests. “If nobody is thinking about the technology, you’ve probably done your job well.”

Davies believes that location is essential to designing a sonic spectacle. “You need the sound to come from a certain place, but it’s also got to cover the audience effectively,” he says. “Usually, an invisible loudspeaker system is the answer. We could build the most powerful speaker in the world, and it could ‘wow’ people, but if you can’t physically fit it in, it’s irrelevant. If you do it right, then it’s seamless. As you move around, the audience has no idea that there are loudspeakers in different zones or hidden in set pieces because they get consistency everywhere.”

Spatial audio systems are one way to achieve this. “Sennheiser Spectera gives engineers far greater flexibility, allocating resources dynamically rather than treating each microphone or IEM as isolated,” says Davies.

“It also suits immersive audio capture, where phase coherence across microphones is critical for accurate spatial imaging – especially for Ambisonic, surround and object-based techniques, where small timing differences can degrade localisation. With its low-latency transmission and remote monitoring, it’s a reliable platform that preserves natural depth and realism.”

Immersive audio may be a buzzword, but “it’s absolutely nothing new,” says Davies. “It’s been more than 30 years since the first Cirque du Soleil show used Spacemap. For us, it’s a built-in part of our toolset for spectacles. From day one, our algorithms were built for flexibility and for doing spatial in weird and wonderful spaces.”

Meyer Sound recently supplied Europe’s first permanent Cirque show, “and that’s a full-on spectacle that uses a spatial PA system,” says Davies. “It’s a beautiful show as well – all the Cirque shows are. It’s a great piece of sound design, too. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we did an immersive art piece – Jewel – with very small loudspeakers, but audio was an intrinsic part of the experience. It was about the lighting, the visuals, the location, the art and the audio being added to it. It had to be discreet.”

Audio around the world

Not every event or installation requires this sort of discretion. For example, with the Eurovision Song Contest, which is certainly its own class of spectacle, it’s hardly a concern. “Eurovision is one of the most technically demanding live productions in the world, given the sheer number of artists, microphones, IEMs and rapid changeovers,” says Blight.

“The biggest challenge isn’t adding effects – it’s delivering consistency. Every artist deserves to have the same confidence that their wireless system will perform flawlessly, no matter how complex the production becomes.”

To pull off the latest Eurovision competition, “we relied heavily on Sennheiser Spectera for wireless, alongside supporting systems, with careful RF planning throughout the venue,” says Blight. “Sonoros let the team monitor audio from multiple locations – during final checks, engineers could confirm every transmitter was working correctly and assigned to the correct performer before they stepped on stage. SoundBase also helped maintain visibility over the wireless environment throughout rehearsals and broadcasts.”

Meanwhile, Davies touts Coachella and the Montreux Jazz Festival for their spectacular stages – and their ability to deliver the unexpected. “The Do-Lab stage at Coachella is not just another festival stage; it’s a wonderful, creative spectacle to experience. The point is the music, but they’ve done such a great job on the design.” In Montreux, there’s a jazz club with a spatial audio system as well as another venue more akin to a nightclub, which provides another example of how to elevate an audio-heavy experience.

“The DJ booth is in the middle, and they’ve transformed the room through the use of lighting and sound and interior design,” says Davies.

Sound at the centre

While trends like immersive audio are not altogether novel, “the technology has matured significantly,” explains Blight. “Object-based mixing, advanced loudspeaker processing and increasingly accurate spatial rendering let engineers place sounds in three-dimensional space far more convincingly than stereo or conventional surround. But this can only succeed if the underlying capture and delivery systems are equally robust. Clean microphone signals, accurate monitoring, reliable wireless links and
low latency remain the foundations of any immersive experience.”

Mizzi hasn’t mixed much spatial audio yet, but he’s heard some ‘impressive results’ and is excited to witness its evolution. For now, he’s continuing to experiment with the tools at his disposal.

On a macro scale, “I think we’re watching the value of the live experience grow,” says Mizzi, from sonic spectacles in music and theatre to augmented reality in sport and retail. And the value is almost literal. “People are willing to pay increasingly high ticket prices,” he adds.

While the demand for spectacle increases, so too does the supply. “Immersive techniques are no longer limited to flagship installations,” argues Blight. “These workflows are becoming practical for live events, broadcast and smaller productions too,” giving audio engineers access to on-the-rise product ranges and spatial mapping services.

“Like any technology, it should serve the performance rather than become it,” Blight concludes. “Used thoughtfully, immersive audio strengthens the emotional connection between artists and audiences – but the sound should always remain at the centre.”

This article was first published in the Autumn 2026 issue of LIVE.