AEW Grand Slam: Dynamite & Collision - Big Sound at Arthur Ashe Stadium Team produces both in-venue and broadcast audio for the noisy wrestling event By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, September 25, 2024 - 3:31 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Arthur Ashe Stadium has long had noise complaints when it hosts the US Open tennis tournaments, but its neighbors haven't heard anything until they hear the racket generated by the All Elite Wrestling (AEW) Grand Slam: Dynamite & Collision, which takes place there tonight. Spectators at the combined Dynamite and Collision events are expected to fill the venue's nearly 24,000 seats for a raucous evening, which will be broadcast on TBS and, for the first time, live streamed, via PPV Triller TV.
It's the combined events' fourth consecutive year at the stadium, before it heads to Brisbane, Australia, for its first-ever visit there, in February.
Like most AEW events, Grand Slam: Dynamite & Collision is produced in-house, from AEW's own Live Media Group-built truck. The Nashville office of Sound Image, now a Clair Global subsidiary, has operated various AEW events' live-production and broadcast interface for five years.
Wrestling as Theater All wrestling is theater, and the production embraces it as such, boosting the volume and the impact of sound effects to support the wrestlers' mythical narratives and keep the crowds roaring.
It is theater, and it is loud, acknowledges Philip Piercy, crew chief/systems engineer/project audio lead, Sound Image. I've been touring for a long time, with music and events, and this is truly unique. It's interesting to watch and hear the crowds react to how the stories play out on stage, and it's rewarding knowing that I can add to that, adjusting the sound system as the show progresses. It's not linear, like a concert. You're never exactly sure how things will turn out.
Arthur Ashe Stadium preps for the fourth straight year of AEW Grand Slam: Dynamite & Collision.
The PA system takes its audio feed directly from the broadcast truck, its consoles - a DiGiCo Quantum 338 and Calrec Apollo over a Hydra2 network, connected via MADI and Dante, respectively - mixing the live show and broadcast separately and simultaneously. Frequency Coordination Group provides the wireless audio for the event, including backstage and ringside interviews that are simulcast on-air and on the large, curved screen, provided by vendor partner Fuse Video, that Sound Image deploys. Two rotating crews handle sound, video, and lighting, traveling 52 weeks a year and doing two or three live shows every week on Wednesdays and Saturdays, as well as special events, such as Pay Per Views.
We're in charge of all the venue audio, notes Piercy, but we're also providing the control package. So we're in charge of the front-of-house audio, and all of that interacts with the broadcast trucks. All the inputs, playback, commercials, pre-tapes, microphones hit the broadcast truck and are sent to us. Ultimately, it is a TV show first, but the live show energizes the audience and becomes a big part of what the television audience will see and hear.
A JBL VTX A12 sound system installed at Arthur Ashe Stadium helps energize the audience.
What they're hearing comes from various crowd mics deployed throughout the venue, some hung from the lighting rigging used with Ashe Stadium's roof closed (which also further amplifies the interior noise), and from camera-mounted shotgun mics used to pick up the sometimes very physical and contentious interaction between wrestlers even before they get into the ring. There are also key effects microphones, such as the Audix D6 cardioid dynamic mics placed facing upwards beneath the ring's floormat, functioning for wrestling much as they do for the kick-drum microphones they were designed to be for live music.
When they pick up a slam on the mat, the crowd hears that, and it sounds like it really hurts, in the PA system and on the air, Piercy says. It's up to the mixer in the truck how much he uses of that. We get all the same mic inputs as the broadcast does, and we can use any of them in the PA. The crowd gets plenty of sound.
That PA is a JBL VTX A12 system, with seven hangs comprising A12 boxes around the venue, four hangs of A8 boxes in a center cluster, and four hangs of VTX S28 subs, Some B28s are also planned for deployment at the Grand Slam: Dynamite & Collision event.
The event gets bigger in a larger venue, and the music gets louder, Piercy notes, so the sound system has to be bigger, too.
Music Choices It's a large system designed to support a large story, as much opera as sport, with music choices carefully crafted to reveal each wrestler's persona, Not unlike walk-up music played as MLB batters approach the plate, the song tells the wrestler's epic backstory - in a minute or less.
With the entrance songs that these guys walk out to, Piercy points out, you can tell a lot about their character based on whether it's a rock song or a mellow song or something else. Some of the wrestlers have [arrangements] with certain [music] artists, and the crowd knows the songs and associate the character with the song. It's part of the history of the sport. A lot of people might wonder why you need a concert-level PA system for a wrestling match. But it's more than just that. You're seeing an entire story unfold.
Most recent headlines
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
AEW Grand Slam: Dynamite & Collision - Big Sound at Arthur Ashe Stadium Team produces both in-venue and broadcast audio for the noisy wrestling event By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
