Sound designer Chris Bogg recognised that the show’s American girl-heavy production numbers had a tendency to sound “squeaky” so the main aim was to make the sound less shrill and much warmer.

Furthermore, the cast are on 28 radio mics, with seven musicians in the orchestra pit on personal monitors, and with further tracks and sound FX from 30 channels of Qlab there was plenty to occupy the mind when in designing the sound system.

The solution was to mount 8 x XD15’s in four pairs on the vertical truss, focused into the different balcony tiers, each with independent control.

The XD’s have multiple options thanks to the rotatable horn; in traditional format it is 80° wide but with the horn rotated the width of dispersion is 130° using two boxes - and for something in-between a format can be devised for r 100° horizontal coverage.

Extending the low frequencies were a pair of Martin Audio WS218X subwoofers, one either side of the stage for stalls coverage. In the upper tiers, the 15’ drivers in the XD15 went sufficiently low that they didn’t need further dedicated subs which had positive implications for set up time and being able to concentrate on the rest of the system.

The rest of the system was a central pair of XD12 downfills, clustered above the proscenium, which drew the vocal image down and shifted it to the centre. Once again, with the rotatable horns these could be set at 100° horizontal x 80° vertical. Finally, 4 x DD6s mounted on the front of the stage provide front fill, while a further eight of these hugely popular utility speakers were used as delays at balcony level to ensure there was no risk of the sound dropping away at the furthest reaches.