CHINA: When more than 100 of China’s biggest film, television, and music stars arrived at Haikou’s Wuyuanhe Gymnasium for the Tencent Video All Star Night, the audience’s first sonic impression came long before the main show began. From the red-carpet spectacle to the arena’s ambitious centre-stage performances, L-Acoustics delivered the seamless audio backbone behind one of China’s most-watched entertainment ceremonies.

Now in its seventh edition, Tencent Video All Star Night has become one of the country’s most significant entertainment galas, drawing millions of online viewers annually. This year’s event, themed Another ME, pushed the production further than ever before, introducing a dedicated red-carpet experience for the first time, adding award categories for short-drama performers, featuring AI-generated virtual hosts in the live broadcast, and placing the main performance stage directly at the centre of the arena—surrounding artists with audience members on all sides.

Managing audio across this highly complex production was rental partner Beijing Dadong Huahan, supported by Rightway Audio Consultants (RACPro), who were tasked with ensuring seamless sound coverage from celebrity arrivals through to the final live performance.

At an entertainment gala of this scale, the red carpet is not simply a pre-show moment—it is a live broadcast event in itself, featuring commentary, interviews, media interactions, and direct fan engagement. Delivering strong, intelligible sound here required both performance and discretion, with no room for visually intrusive loudspeaker stacks.

To solve this, Racpro deployed two Syva with Syva Low systems on either side of the themed media backdrop. The slim architectural design of Syva allowed the loudspeakers to blend almost invisibly into the visual set, while its controlled directivity delivered focused, full-range sound precisely where it was needed across the media and presentation zones.

“The red carpet is the audience’s first impression of the entire event, so the sound had to be as polished as the visuals,” says Li Wenxi, Senior System Engineer for RACpro. “Syva gave us exactly that. Powerful, focused sound in a form factor that disappeared into the design.”

Inside Wuyuanhe Gymnasium, the challenge shifted dramatically. With the main stage positioned at the dead centre of the arena and several thousand spectators seated in a full bowl configuration around it, the audio system had to deliver powerful, uniform coverage in every direction while preserving completely unobstructed sightlines to the performance area.

Using L-Acoustics’ Soundvision software, the design team modelled the venue in advance before deploying two flown main hangs of six K1 and six K2 each, supported by four side-fill hangs of 10 K2 each and 10 front-fill positions of two Kara II each around the perimeter of the stage. All arrays were flown to maintain clean audience sightlines and maximise the immersive impact of the central-stage format. “With the stage in the centre, every seat was essentially a front-row seat, so the system had to deliver the same impact in every direction,” says Wenxi. “K1 gave us the raw power for a room of this scale, while K2’s Panflex technology let us shape coverage precisely without cluttering sightlines.”

The result was a fully integrated audio environment where every moment — from celebrity arrivals and live speeches to high-energy performances — felt equally intentional and equally impactful. “From the Syva on the red carpet to the K1 in the arena, L-Acoustics gave us a single ecosystem that covered every moment of the show — arrivals, performances, speeches — without a single compromise,” adds Wenxi.