St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada, April 2010: Canada’s biggest night in music, the televised JUNO Awards show, was an all-Sennheiser event this year, with every featured vocal performer, as well as hosts and presenters, making use of new 2000 Series and evolution G2 wireless microphones. Quebec’s Solotech supplied production for the thirty-ninth annual event, which was broadcast by CTV from St. John’s in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada on April 18, with wireless coordination and calibration provided by Christian Pageau of Transmission Squelch based in Quebec, P.Q. and RF Wireless Systems Inc. of Nepean, Ontario.
This year, for the first time, the two-hour music awards special included a street party from an outdoor stage on George Street, a renowned entertainment district in the City of Legends, with local hosts Damhnait Doyle and Kim Stockwood. The telecast opened from the remote stage with rapper
Classified performing his hit, “Oh Canada,”
before moving indoors to the Mile One Centre stadium.
According to R.F. Technician Scott Nickerson of RF Wireless Systems, “For the show inside Mile One Centre we had thirty-seven channels of wireless microphones – two body-packs and thirty-five ‘sticks’ – and approximately seventeen IEM channels, which were all the new 2000 Series. All the frontline was wireless. The total number of RF channels being used at all locations, including George Street and the Red Carpet, was 155 channels – seventy-five of those channels were Sennheiser.”
All of the vocal mics and IEMs in use at the JUNOs on George segment of the event were Sennheiser evolution wireless series, Nickerson reports. Communications systems accounted for the majority of the remaining RF channels. Additionally, CTV/MTV supplied eight channels of SKM 5200 microphones and EK 3241 camera-mount receivers to cover the red carpet arrivals.
This was Nickerson’s first experience with the new 2000 Series systems. “I really like the fact the systems are capable of up to 75 MHz tunable bandwidth, depending on the frequency range. You never can have too much room to move around in the spectrum when you need it,” he comments. “Another key feature is the fact that the antenna inputs can be daisy-chained up to eight EM 2050 receivers, thus eliminating the need for multiple antenna dividers in larger systems.”
“I also like the variable power output settings,” he adds. “Although I tend to set my transmitters to maximum power for a show like this, I only set my nine presenter/intro mics to 50 mW – they were on the satellite stage in the middle of the arena – and left my performance mics at the 30 mW setting. I never had a range issue or worried about enough level getting to my receivers even with the fully-packed house during the show. Impressive!”
Michael Bublé got the indoor show off to a start with his hit single, “Haven’t Met You Yet,” which picked up the “Single of the Year” award. Bublé took home three additional honors, including “JUNO Fan Choice,” “Album of the Year” and “Pop Album of the Year” (presented at a gala dinner prior to the show).
Rapper Drake was also a winner, for “New Artist of the Year” and “Rap Recording of the Year,” appearing as a guest with teen phenomenon Justin Bieber before performing his own new single, “Over.” “We had to bring a special mic in for Drake,” reports Nickerson. Sennheiser Canada handled the last-minute request, delivering a custom white SKM 2000 in time for the show. Nickerson adds, “We had to paint a microphone stand all white for him, too.”
The grand finale featured K’naan, honored for “Songwriter of the Year” and “Artist of the Year,” performing his award-winning international hit, “Wavin’ Flag,” with many of the night’s presenters and performers, including Drake, Fefe Dobson, Justin Bieber, and members of the Arkells, Barenaked Ladies, Faber Drive, Hedley, and Metric and Stereos. “For that one performance we had eighteen Sennheiser wireless mics onstage,” Nickerson notes. “The band used 2000 Series mics and we used twelve evolution G2s for the guests.”
The show also included performances by a host of Canada’s top recording artists, including Blue Rodeo, Great Lake Swimmers, Billy Talent and Johnny Reid.
ABOUT SENNHEISER Sennheiser is a world-leading manufacturer of microphones, headphones and wireless transmission systems. Established in 1945 in Wedemark, Germany, Sennheiser is now a global brand represented in sixty countries around the world through long-term distribution partners and subsidiaries in France, UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Russia, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Japan, China, Canada, Mexico and the USA. Sennheiser’s technology is produced in manufacturing plants in Germany, Ireland and the United States. Their pioneering excellence in technology has rewarded the company with numerous awards and accolades including an Emmy, a Grammy and the Scientific and Engineering Award (of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). The Sennheiser Group is proud to be affiliated with Georg Neumann (world leading studio microphones), and the joint venture Sennheiser Communications that brings their award winning technology to headsets for PCs, offices and contact centers.
OTHER BRANDS DISTRIBUTED BY SENNHEISER CANADA Neumann, Klein+Hummel, Innovason, L’Acoustics, Kling & Freitag, K-array, Yellowtec, Televic
PHOTO CAPTION Canada’s poet-rapper K’naan performed at the JUNO Awards using a Sennheiser 2000 Series wireless microphone and won awards for “Artist of the Year” and “Songwriter of the Year.” PHOTO CREDIT: (c) CARAS/iPhoto
