Expo Zaragoza 2008 recently wrapped its three-month run, and one of the Expo’s artistic centerpieces, Iceberg: Visual Poetic Symphony, dazzled the festival’s crowds with the help of products from EAW, a world leader in audio system solutions. Spanish EAW distributor Pro 3 & Co. S.A. handled the sale and implementation of EAW products for the Expo.

Expo 2008 was an international exposition coordinated by the Bureau of International Expositions, the organization responsible for sanctioning World’s Fairs. With “Water and Sustainable Development” and “Climate Change” as the festival’s central themes, the nightly multimedia piece Iceberg put global ecological issues to a poetic, beautiful and simple, yet moving, artistic display. The piece involved a gigantic iceberg sculpture in the River Ebro, with a dialogue of images and sounds over the course of the 21-minute runtime, representing mankind’s struggle to preserve the planet. Award-winning Catalonian theater company FOCUS produced the show, which ran for 93 nights at the Expo. The show was a success, in part due to the powerful, reliable sound provided by EAW loudspeakers and subwoofers.

The show’s outdoor nature required enough sound to project throughout the festival, yet the arrays needed to be inconspicuous enough so as to not be visually distracting, which required careful planning and construction. Behind the sculpture were two towers, each consisting of three clusters of eight EAW KF760 Long-Throw Line Array Modules (48 modules total). The system was complemented by 12 EAW SB1000z Large Format Subwoofers on each side. Inside the sculpture was a stereo arrangement of 18 KF750z High Output Array Loudspeakers (9 per side). To the rear of the public viewing area were located 36 EAW JFX260 Compact Full-Range Loudspeakers. Amplification for all EAW products was provided by Lab.gruppen amps.

Dani Homs, Sound Technician in charge of the event, stated, “Our main concern was to deliver a precise and powerful sound to the audience, all of whom were situated more than 170 meters away, across the Ebro River. And of course, we needed to provide them excellent sound quality. Thanks to EAW KF Series systems, we got a massive, clear sound quality every night.”