CLIENT
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo
LOCATION
Edinburgh Castle Esplanade, Scotland
YEAR
2023
PROJECT TYPE
Ceremonies / Cultural Event
Scope
Sound design for the 2023 Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo
Services Provided
- →System design and sound design
- →Replay and timecode systems
- →Spatial audio and performer localisation
- →Broadcast and live mix support
The Brief
We were brought on board by the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo as Sound Designers for the 2023 show, ‘Stories’. Our role was to design and deliver a world-class audio experience for one of the most iconic live events in the world, held nightly on the dramatic backdrop of the Edinburgh Castle Esplanade.
The show’s ambition was clear: to take the audience on a journey through storytelling, connecting performers and spectators through culture, history, and powerful shared experiences, all delivered with military precision and theatrical scale.
The Challenge
Delivering a consistent, powerful and immersive audio experience to 8,800 people each night, outdoors, in the heart of a centuries-old fortress presents its own unique set of challenges.
We needed to create clarity and impact across music, voice and sound effects, all while keeping the sound tightly integrated with lighting, pyro, video, and live broadcast. The wind, rain, and the sheer complexity of nightly performances with 800 cast members meant the system had to be robust, flexible, and reliable under pressure.
Our Approach
We worked closely with the Tattoo’s creative and production teams from the outset, designing an audio system to provide even coverage throughout the audience, extending into the lower octaves of the spectrum to meet the needs of the growing use of contemporary music within the show, all whilst being sensitive to sightlines and aesthetics.
We implemented a dual-redundant pair of TiMax SoundHubs to program spatial movement of performers, time-aligned to show control, allowing us to precisely position moments in the soundscape as the cast moved across the Esplanade.
We built a dedicated monitoring workflow to handle monitoring for the stage band and the esplanade performers, allowing FOH to focus on the audience experience and TiMax programming.
Technical Highlights:
Audio Design
Main Loudspeaker System
The primary audience system was based on a distributed arrangement of L-Acoustics KIVA II arrays and L-Acoustics SB15m for primary coverage across the seating area. A further system of L-Acoustics 5XT fills were deployed along the full length of the front handrails to provide further localisation to the Esplanade, and coverage of the accessible platforms.
Castle Loudspeaker System
For those iconic moments where the show begins at the Castle gates, such as the entrance of the Massed Pipes & Drums, we deployed L-Acoustics K2 ground stacks with KS28 subwoofers on either side of the drawbridge. These provided powerful, localised audio support for the fanfares and entrances that frame the Tattoo’s signature scenes.
Spatial Audio and Movement Tracking
The most unique challenge of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is the movement of playing musicians through the vast performance area, meaning that the musical sources are acoustically shifting in the time domain with respect to each listener’s position. Our goal is to reinforce and amplify the musical sources whilst maintaining the timing and localisation to each source based on its position on the Esplanade, which is where the TiMax system serves a critical role, providing discrete delay and level matrixing for each source to each loudspeaker position.
We programmed the TiMax SoundHub with the movements of the cast to time code. We used the TiMax tracking system as a programming tool during production rehearsals to understand the movements of musicians and inform the programming process.
Stage Band Systems
The stage band, housed in the castle moat, separated from the main Esplanade performance area, provided a critical part of the show’s musical texture. They played everything from lush underscore to electronic tracks with any instrumentation too complex or bulky to deliver live on the parade ground. Their mixes were managed on a dedicated console, feeding both FOH and in-ear monitoring, maintaining precise alignment with the rest of the show.
Control was delivered via a pair of dual-engine DiGiCo Quantum 7 consoles, one at FOH and one in the band room for monitor mixing, both using close to their full capacity of input channels.
Show Control Design
Playback and timecode were handled by a dual-redundant QLab system, triggering everything from backing tracks to voice cues with frame accuracy. Signal was routed using a dual-redundant Optocore network, feeding AES directly to the amplifiers.
The Results
Across 25 performances in August, more than 220,000 people experienced ‘Stories’ live, with many more tuning in around the world via broadcast. The show was a seamless blend of tradition and technology, and audio played a central role in making the production immersive and emotionally resonant.
Our 2023 debut with the Tattoo team was a true collaboration, and we were proud to help bring their vision to life, night after night, on one of the most iconic stages in the world.
Acknowledgements
Our Client
A huge thanks to Michael, Ed and Harry from REMT for inviting us into the Tattoo family and to the rest of the creative team for welcoming us in our first year.
Our Team
The system was designed by Scott Willsallen and Ethan Curry with editing support from Joe Callister. Toby Chester and Martin Dineley are the mix engineers for the show.
Our Supplier
Our thanks to Solotech for supplying, installing and maintaining the system for us and thanks to James for leading the team onsite.
Related Projects
