CANADA: The recent Olympic Games provided a global showcase for numerous pro-audio suppliers, writes David Davies. Community, Digigram, Lawo, Fairlight and RTS were among the other companies whose technology was deployed at the 2010 Winter Olympics, which took place in Vancouver, British Columbia last month.

Community Professional Loudspeakers products were evident at a raft of Olympic sporting venues. The Speed Skating Oval in Richmond is the first Olympic venue to use Community's compact ENTASYS three-way, full-range, weather-resistant column line array loudspeaker system, while the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports facility features Community R.5 full-range all-weather systems.

Elsewhere, The Trout Lake Ice Rink and Killarney Community Centres both incorporate deployments of iBOX IHP1596 loudspeakers; the Richmond O Zone features Community R1, R.5 and R2 loudspeakers; and the West Vancouver Spirit Square boasts a consignment of iBOX IHP1200 Series and Cloud12 units. Post-Olympics, the Vancouver Olympic Centre/Vancouver Paralympic Centre is to become a community sports/education facility and will be equipped with Community R1, CLOUD6 and CLOUD12 loudspeakers.

Julia Lee, Community's director of marketing and sales, tells PSN-e: "It's always an honour to be associated with the Olympic Games. Olympic venues are naturally the most prestigious athletic showcase venues in the world, with the architecturally and technologically innovative stadiums of the Vancouver Games being no different. While Community R-Series has been an outdoor stadium standard for many years, we are pleased that our ENTASYS, iBOX and CLOUD loudspeakers were also chosen by Vancouver contractors to counter many of the special acoustical challenges presented by the winter sports arenas."