The New Year’s Day Parade
NSR provides audio/visual services for many large scale public events. One of the most renowned public events NSR has provided the audio communications for is London’s New Year’s Day Parade. The company has worked on this event every year since its inception when it took place on North Carriage Way Drive, Hyde Park with a team of just one man who installed six speakers, one lead mic and one radio mic.
Today the New Year’s Day Parade has grown into an internationally recognised event that attracts performers from all around the globe. Consequently the one-man NSR team of yesteryear has grown with the event and now requires a team of 19 NSR technicians responsible for 9 PA sites all with single tier commentary units and a seventh PA site at the finish arena in Whitehall, which has a two tier commentary box housing the live commentary team and the media crew that broadcast the parade on world-wide television. The sound system installed in this area was the NEXO PS15 sound rig, which NSR introduced into their stock in 2011. In total these PA sites require over 650m of cabling as well as 10 generators up to 20kva.
In 2012 NSR introduced a new speaker system at the parade start area; EAW JFL210 loudspeakers. The JFL210 loudspeaker is an ideal solution for many applications, including live sound reinforcement for concerts and events, making them ideal for the New Year’s Day Parade. The enclosure size, shape, weight and rigging of the JFL210 loudspeaker are optimised for easy transportation and installation and can be individually pole-mounted or alternatively arrays can be easily flown, ground stacked or permanently installed.
In addition to the PA sites NSR also provide a two-tier unit situated in Whitehall opposite Downing Street, which acted as the overall control unit and housed the Police, Security, St John Ambulance control, Westminster City Council and the Event Control. This control unit provides the central point for contact with all services throughout the parade route.
Large public events, such as London’s New Year’s Day Parade, come with their own set of unique challenges and one of those is ensuring everything adheres to public health and safety, which means working closely with local councils. Scheduling is critical to ensure the NSR teams are in a specified times to install and breakdown communications systems with the minimum of disruption and risk to public health and safety.