At Tivoli Garden’s Friday Rock Concert on 31st August 2018, MONICA starts testing its sound field control system for an improved sound environment during concerts. Additionally, solutions are deployed to support crowd monitoring and security and safety measures at the park which welcomes about 4.5 million visitors a year.
Tivoli is located in the centre of Copenhagen. The yellow area highlights the main outdoor stage where Friday Rock concerts are held. The blue area indicates the residential area and the star points out the placement of the dark zone for the test.
Celebrating its 175 anniversary this year, Tivoli is one of the oldest amusement parks in the world, offering a wide range of rides and over 1500 entertainment events, some of which are concerts taking place on either of four outdoor stages.
Since Tivoli is located in the city centre and next to a residental area, the goal is to keep sound impact at a minimum outside of the concert area and at the same time provide the best concert sound for the audience. In MONICA, the main focus is therefore on deploying a sound field control system which can help do this, and Tivoli has selected its Friday Rock concerts as testing grounds.
Deploying bright, dark and quiet sound zones
The aim of the MONICA sound field control system is to provide an optimised sound field in the audience area, the bright zone, while minimising the exposure to noise in neighboring areas, the dark zones. Thus, at the front of the stage, the music can be louder for a better concert experience, whereas the sound levels (low frequency levels) are reduced outside the concert area and in a selection of quiet zones inside the area. The quiet zones are established to provide areas where staff and visitors are able to communicate regardless of the sound level of the music.
A simplified version of the system is demonstrated at Tivoli’s main outdoor stage area with a set-up of 18 loudspeakers, 10 IoT sound level meters and four environmental sensors. Based on the information coming from sensors, a sound heat map is created showing an estimate of the sound level based on the sound pressure and weather conditions. The command centre can monitor the status in the MONICA COP.
The sound field control system with bright, dark and quiet zones. Primary sources are the venue’s own PA system. Secondary sources are the MONICA loudspeakers cancelling low frequencies based on the sound propagation model. At the demonstration, one quiet zone will be established.
In front of the stage at a Friday Rock concert. Friday Rock takes place from April to September with 24 concerts in 2018. Source: Tivoli A/S
This information is used together with monitored data from Tivoli’s existing PA system to create a sound propagation model for the adjustment of sound levels to be executed by the loudspeakers which can cancel out low frequency noise.
At the demonstration, the project uses a simplified, semi-static calculation model to illustrate the different zones, establishing one quiet zone in the area. However, later on in the project, the system will be fully adaptive, meaning it will continually update the model, and consequently the loudspeaker signal, according to the environmental conditions.
Improve guest counting and minimise critical crowds
Tivoli welcomes millions of visitors each year and Friday Rock sees up to 500,000 guests visit the park during the 24-week long season. Security and safety are handled by Tivoli’s existing security set-up which MONICA’s crowd and capacity solutions will support.
Four surveillance cameras are installed in the concert area and two just outside Tivoli’s main entrance. They count the number of people in the areas, monitor direction and magnitude of crowd flow and send early warnings of high risk queues through the COP which enables the command centre to notify park staff.
The general goal for Tivoli is to improve the guest counting methods and minimise critical crowd movement and behaviour in the audience areas as well as develop an early crowd warning system for the most important entrances to minimise crowd build-up.
Map of Tivoli Gardens with main stage and entrances. The main entrance is equipped with two MONICA cameras to expand the monitoring area as illustrated by the light-yellow marking. Source: Tivoli A/S.
Safety and security incidents
Large crowds also mean potential occurrence of safety and security incidents. At the demonstration, Tivoli is exploring the use of MONICA smart crowd wristbands for quick location of missing people as well as apps and smart glasses for communication between security staff member and incident reporting. The command centre will be notified through the COP about any abnormalities such as fights.
IoT devices used in the first Friday Rock demonstration at Tivoli. From the left: sound level meter, loudspeakers, cameras, crowd wristbands, smart glasses, mobile phone. The crowd wristbands will be worn by staff members at this demonstration.
Based on the results from the demonstration, the solutions will be further developed and tested at future concerts.
Want to know more? Contact us:
Pilot manager: Christina Domino Weesgaard from Tivoli A/S
Technical contact, sound: Jonas Brunskog from Technical University of Denmark
