Lawo Powers Audio Production For 2026 Concert de Paris

Lawo provided the IP-based audio infrastructure for the 2026 Concert de Paris, supporting live sound and broadcast production for France's annual Bastille Day classical music concert at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Held on 13 July this year, the event attracted tens of thousands of spectators to Paris' Champ de Mars and was broadcast live on France 2, France Inter and through the Eurovision and Euroradio networks, reaching audiences in more than 70 countries.

Now in its 14th edition, Concert de Paris featured the Orchestre National de France, the Chœur and Maîtrise de Radio France, and an international line-up of soloists under the direction of Daniel Harding. The evening opened with a special performance by the Maîtrise de Radio France to mark the choir's 80th anniversary.

To support simultaneous front-of-house, stage monitoring and international broadcast operations, Radio France deployed a fully redundant Lawo audio-over-IP infrastructure. The system comprised three Lawo mc²56 production consoles connected to a redundant pair of A__UHD Core audio engines over a redundant RAVENNA network, with a HOME management cluster providing device management, monitoring and connection control.

Radio France's live sound team, led by Christophe Lukaszewski, used two 48-fader mc²56 consoles for front-of-house mixing. Stéphane Thouvenin mixed the soloists and choirs, while Nadège Antonini was responsible for the orchestra mix and PA outputs under the supervision of Benoît Gaspard. Stage monitoring was handled by Tahar Boukhlifa and Charles Bouticourt, coordinated by Cyprien Matheux, using a dual-operator mc²56 configuration.

The 2026 event also marked the first use of Lawo's Dynamic EQ functionality at Concert de Paris, adding the company's latest processing capabilities to the live sound workflow.

Broadcast audio production was carried out from Radio France's outside broadcast facilities using a Lawo mc²66 MkII console. Julien Bourdais, Laurent Fracchia and Arnaud Moral produced the international broadcast mix for French television and radio as well as Eurovision distribution.

The concert featured performances by Corinne Winters, Marina Viotti, Farrah El-Dibany, Jakub Józef Orliński, Lawrence Brownlee, Daniel Lozakovich, Gautier Capuçon, Hayato Sumino, Masaya Kamei and Adélaïde Ferrière, accompanied by the Orchestre National de France, Chœur de Radio France and Maîtrise de Radio France under the baton of Daniel Harding.

The evening concluded with a performance of La Marseillaise followed by the traditional Eiffel Tower fireworks display, which this year also incorporated 1,600 drones.

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