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[dick rees]

No names to protect the potentially innocent;
Imagine a prestigious event in a very large sports stadium.  There are several sections to the entertainment, so lets assume that no permanent sound reinforcement structures can be erected. Into this place some kind of drumming band.  The intention is for this band to play to a backing track in time.  The audience of millions is supposed to hear this music seamlessly in time. 

The speed of sound at in warm dry air is about 1140 feet per second.  Since the distance between the center of the pitch and the closest audience is 150feet the band will hear the track 0.13 seconds late and the audience will perceive the band 0.26 second behind the beat.

I'm potentially a performer in the drumming band - should I panic? 

Watch the conductor.......

[Jay Barracato]

Watch the conductor.......

That was my thought.  Most marching bands I have encountered use visual cues.k

[Tim McCulloch]

Watch the conductor.......

Driving that train high on cocaine,
Casey Jones you had better watch your speed.

[Ivan Beaver]

Watch the conductor.......

But that is so " 'ol school".

But STILL the correct way.  Assuming the conductor hears the beat on time.

But still allowing for the sound to basically reach the audience from the sound system and the band at the same time.

Of course this is A LOT harder to do in reality-because the audience is spread out over a large area-and often the band is also.

Of course "playing as a group_ is also so old school.. Why do that when you have a sound system?  But that is another topic that most modern musicians (specifically electronic in nature) jsut don't want to hear. 

BUT AGIN-the CORRECT way.

[Nils SK Erickson]

just milli vanilli it. Solves all your problems and saves on rehearsal time   

[Dave Potter]

Ok, well,  No one even attempted to guess (in fact there has been very little conversation at all).

The event in question was the London Olympics Closing ceremony.  They got around it by nobody playing a note! I was due to be in the Samba band for the handover.  It was billed as:- "one of Rio's top Samba schools.".  Actually, 72 of the 80 performers were UK samba players of some considerable talent.  Not that they needed to be.  They rehearsed their 12 minute slot for 2 months.  Every single drum in the opening and closing ceremony was muffled    everyone mimed.   They ripped the covers off when the cameras stopped rolling and drummed everyone out of the stadium!!

They all had IEMs to keep in step.  I don't know which.

[Pete Erskine]

No names to protect the potentially innocent;
Imagine a prestigious event in a very large sports stadium.  There are several sections to the entertainment, so lets assume that no permanent sound reinforcement structures can be erected. Into this place some kind of drumming band.  The intention is for this band to play to a backing track in time.  The audience of millions is supposed to hear this music seamlessly in time. 

The speed of sound at in warm dry air is about 1140 feet per second.  Since the distance between the center of the pitch and the closest audience is 150feet the band will hear the track 0.13 seconds late and the audience will perceive the band 0.26 second behind the beat.

I'm potentially a performer in the drumming band - should I panic? 

All of your hundreds of drummers are on in ears listening to a click track.  You have several channels available on your ears.  One might be for the dancers, another for the Field marshals, and another for the horseback riders.  Not only can they all hear the track in perfect time but Choreographers and stage managers can give you special instructions.  All of the house PA is timed from the center of the pitch.  The track for you group of drummers is also timed from the center of the pitch.

On the Beijing Opening Ceremony, we had 18,000 in ears on 6 channels. 
Almost every performer had ears. see pictures HERE.  http://www.bestaudio.com/2008_Beijing_olympics.htm

In 2000 at the Sydney Olympic Games was the first time for extremely large mass cast in ears.  As a test we put out 300 ears on half the cast in a segment rehearsal.  While waiting to start, the audio engineer rolled the track to check something with the pot down in the house - all of a sudden 300 kids started tapping in time to no apparent audio, it was a real defining moment.

[Dave Potter]

They had the whole mix AND directions in their IEMs

[Pete Erskine]

They had the whole mix AND directions in their IEMs

Mix controlled by Monitor engineer.  Sometimes just click.
The Chory intercom panels are mixed into the feeds as well by the Monitor engineer.  The 7 Chory panels have choice of talking into 14 different feeds depending on what segment they are communicating with.  In addition to the Mass cast ears which we call level 3, there are Level 2 (standard Sennheiser ears) as well as Level 1 or Headline Talent ears.  There is also a couple of channels labeled Safety which transmit to flying stunt persons.