ORF Upgrades Salzburg Hall’s Control Room

Austria (March 18, 2025)—Austrian public broadcaster ORF has upgraded the audio control room at the Grosses Festspielhaus (Grand Festival Hall) in Salzburg with Lawo technology.

The Grosses Festspielhaus, with a seating capacity of 2,200, is an opera and concert venue that opened in 1960; since then, it has served as central stage for the Salzburg Festival (Salzburger Festspiele). As part of a recent refurbishment, the venue now has a Lawo mc²56 MkIII audio production console with 32 faders.

The system is powered by the A__UHD Core audio engine, complemented by A__stage64 and A__stage80 stageboxes for high-resolution audio interfacing, and A__madi6 for integration with additional audio components. The Waves SoundGrid integration provides sound processing capabilities, while a fully IP-based network infrastructure with redundant switches aids signal transmission. The new Lawo system has been in operation since early 2024, supporting events such as the Mozart Weeks, Easter Festival and other music events.

Frank Wendtner-Andraschko, ORF tonmeister, noted, “Opera productions uniquely blend music, vocals and stage performance. The orchestra plays from the pit, while singers and choirs perform on stage. Additional musical and vocal elements are often positioned behind the scenes, on lighting bridges, in the loft, or beneath the stage. Each production presents new challenges, from microphone placement to mixing in 5.1 surround.

Another factor in choosing Lawo was its integration into ORF’s broader infrastructure. “Our studio control rooms and OB trucks already use Lawo technology, allowing us to rely on a proven system. IP-based signal distribution enables us to seamlessly control productions not only in the Grand Festival Hall, but also in the Felsenreitschule and the House for Mozart. The stage boxes are then housed centrally in the central hub, where the signals from all the venues are received and distributed via fiber optics.”