KRAKOW and BRZEGI, Poland — 2016 World Youth Day drew an estimated 2.5 million people to two cities in Poland, where Pope Francis addressed the gatherings. Considering the large number of sound towers and receivers deployed — and vast distances between them — Optocore and its OEM associate, BroaMan set up a fully-redundant optical fiber network.
More details from Optocore (www.optocore.com) and BroaMan (www.broaman.com):
Billed as the biggest event in the world, an estimated 2.5 million people are believed to have flocked to the 2016 World Youth Day (WYD), an international Catholic event focused on faith and youth, which this year took place at two sites in Kraków and Brzegi.
Pope Francis addressed large gatherings of pilgrims. Given the scale of the event, the pressure on providing a suitable public address system and pristine signal delivery to all worshippers across the vast spaces was immense.
Considering the large number of sound towers and receivers deployed — and vast distances between them (the farthest was located almost 2km from FOH) — the only solution was to use fiber. Optocore and its OEM associate, BroaMan have this capability, and they set up a fully-redundant optical fiber network using the advanced, protocol-independent tools.
Both the principal sound rental companies — GigantSound-Letus and GMB Pro Sound — were charged with sourcing the inventory to implement this. They relied heavily on large multi-node redundant Optocore ring networks for the two main sites, Błonia Park in Kraków, which holds 600,000, and the nearby village of Brzegi, where the site could accommodate 2.5-3 million people. The latter location saw the biggest deployment of technical gear ever put out for a single event, according to Gigant’s Jurek Taborowski.
The person responsible for specifying the BroaMan / Optocore solution was Marek Kotomski, coordinator from the WYD Organizing Committee and co-designer of the fiber infrastructure in Kraków.
In total, some 160 devices from the German company were deployed, with a large number of interfaces provided respectively by French partners, Lumière & Son and GB4D.
Meanwhile, another Polish company, 4Vision, was contracted to install and maintain these systems, with onsite support throughout from the Optocore technicians. 4Vision also had to manage the timetable in what proved to be a fast fit project, with challenging deadlines.
Brought in by the WYD Organizing Committee, the 4Vision team received training from Optocore before taking delivery of the pre-configured rack systems at the two French bases.
Pawel Fila, who supervised the technical installation, says, “Aside from the distances we needed to cover, the advantages of using Optocore was that the system was so simple for installation and control.”
Commenting on the strategic importance of the event to BroaMan and Optocore, BroaMan MD Tine Helmle says, “Our fiber systems have helped broadcast site transmission over some of the biggest and most prestigious global events over the years — but this has to be the largest of all. We are proud to have been associated with World Youth Day and are delighted by the way our partners worked together to ensure a world class performance.”
The next World Youth Day will take place in Panama in 2019.
