The high point of Pope Francis’ three-day, early autumn visit to Lithuania was an open-air Holy Mass celebrated for more than 100,000 of the faithful at Sàntakos Park in the city of Kaunas. For flawless audio reinforcement of the momentous event, Lithuanian rental company NGR Service deployed a massive 228-loudspeaker Meyer Sound system anchored by LEO Family line arrays.

“The biggest challenges we faced were the overall size and irregular contours of the audience area,” says Valdemaras Karpuška, a partner in NGR Service who also served as location manager and live broadcast sound engineer. “The area we had to cover was around 320 meters wide by 360 meters deep, and it wasn’t a regular ‘shoe box’ venue. There were numerous obstacles, such as trees and raised embankments, that we needed to work around.”

Gloria in excelsis LEO

Front Of House engineer Tomas Ždanovičius, also a partner in NGR Service, took the lead on sound system design for the event. “We started our planning by using the MAPP XT™ software, which is an irreplaceable tool for predicting coverage,” he recalls.