Miss Saigon will play in Utrecht for 6 months, staged by Joop Van den Ende Theatrical Productions and Stage Entertainment. With the Boublil and Schönberg's musical now in its 20th year, Cameron Mackintosh was the driving force behind the Dutch show, involving set director Laurence Connor and sound designer Mick Potter to bring an exciting new contemporary feel. Orbital Sound was contracted by Stage Entertainment to provide the sound equipment and support, marking the company's third concurrent international musical in Holland during 2011.

From the production perspective, the show is something of a legend with Dutch audiences, after its amazing run 15 years ago. The team behind staging the 2011 version of Miss Saigon was very concerned with achieving a balance between maintaining the show's magic while bringing it up to date – involving introducing new technologies as well as reflecting today's commercial realities. Whichever way you look at it, Miss Saigon remains a monster of a show to stage, although the 2011 cast numbers are more manageable at 36 in total.

Stage Entertainment Holland's Executive Producer Peter O'Keeffe explains:
"There were plenty of challenges to contend with, not least matching up the availability of the creative team. Cameron and Claude-Michel were both closely involved with this new production, and Mick Potter's availability was understandably restricted as well. The result was that the show preparation time was severely curtailed, and the timescales were extremely challenging to say the least!

"There are only a handful of sound providers out there of the calibre to handle a show such as this, and Orbital performed on all counts. They were prepared to overcome the hurdles and work proactively with us to achieve the top quality result we demand. In the event, they were responsible for all aspects of the show preparation, working equally closely with our production team, as well as the sound contingent under Mick. The best compliment I can pay Orbital is to say that I heard virtually nothing about them on this show – which underlines what a great job they did, simply getting things done seamlessly in the background."

For Mick Potter, Miss Saigon represented a very different musical to his previous experience with Cameron Mackintosh, with whom he had worked on new sound designs for Phantom of the Opera in London and New York, and most recently, the 25th anniversary production of Les Miserables in London Spain and the US. Mick recalls that he was first approached a year ago:
"Cameron told me about the project and asked me to get involved with what would essentially be a brand new version. It is an amazingly cinematic show, and the objective was to update it with a more visceral, energetic contemporary feel. Claude-Michel Schonberg's score is one of the most beautiful and challenging I have ever worked on – it is essentially a highly complex sung-through Opera with Bill Brohn's orchestrations featuring everything from fully orchestral numbers, to contemporary pop and lots of complex percussion parts."

Mick's sound design features considerable deployment of surround sound, representing a completely original element for the show. He combined a Meyer M'elodie system front of house with a big d&b audiotechnik surround system, comprising sixty-six d&b E0 loudspeakers with D6 controllers. Mick has used the Meyer M'elodie system consistently for a number of years, with it becoming something of a signature choice, as he explains:
"It is a great system for big dynamic theatre musicals, it remains transparent, handling from the quietest to the loudest sections equally well. It really is the perfect box for this type of production."

Mick configured the main system in two arrays of Meyer M'elodie cabinets, with 14 per side, using a combination of Meyer 10-AC, 500-HP, 600-HP and 700-HP loudspeakers for the main and delay subs. The proscenium delays, main cluster, and delay cluster involve Meyer UPJ-1P cabinets – with the whole system controlled by the Meyer Compass Galileo management system. Mick has used d&b E0-LS throughout for the front and side fills, plus another 40 E0-LS loudspeakers for the main delay system, all powered with D6 controllers. Onstage foldback and sound effects combine Meyer CQ-1s, UPJ-1Ps and UP-Junior loudspeakers, plus d&b E0-LS.

Mick worked closely with Cameron, Claude-Michele and the creative team during the rehearsal period, giving him time to collaborate with them on a number of ideas, particularly with regard to the use of surround sound:
"The great thing about the use of music in surround is that you only notice it when it's not there! We applied a very subtle approach, using it to help separate things out from the vocals. For example, in the nightmare scene in Act II, you need to hear the dialogue and recitation over some very big music. With surround, we could keep the music feeling big without it swamping the vocals. With regard to the choice of surround system, d&b was the obvious choice as the only company that can offer small, very wide-dispersion speakers, and these are used in conjunction with a TC Electronics Reverb 6000 MKII system – the result is that by using lots of surround, we have been able to bring the whole sound to life with a new dynamic."

The DiGiCo SD7 Digital Mixing Console, with the latest SD7T software and an expansion sidecar, is worked hard, processing around 200 inputs and outputs in total. The show features a huge percussion set-up, with Mick deploying more than 50 DPA mics just on the percussion. Mick selected a DiGiCo SD8-24 Digital Mixing Console for the orchestra monitors, with an Aviom monitor system for mixing the orchestra. Five Sennheiser EM1046 MF mainframe systems, with forty-two EM1046 RX-UHF receiver modules and SK5212 UHF transmitters, form the core radio microphone system, complemented by fifty Danish Pro Audio DPA4061 miniature mics. A new item for Mick on the show is the QLab Audio Show Control system.

The full sound team line-up on Miss Saigon in Utrecht comprises: Mick Potter as sound designer, with Paul Gatehouse as associate sound designer. Hennie Schwithal, Crispian Covell, and Charlie Garrick are production sound engineers, with Norbert Boekhout as head of sound.