P&O Cruises' Artemis may be a compact ship when compared to some ocean liners, but it's still far from small. 230 metres in length, weighing 45,000 tonnes and capable of carrying 1,260 passengers on board in comfort, The Artemis regularly journeys from the UK to South America, stopping at some of the most exciting cities in the world. While passengers are on board though, they need entertaining. And P&O Cruises, owned by Carnival UK Group, together with Luton-based install company TED AV, decided that Sennheiser audio equipment would be at the heart of The Artemis' entertainment hardware.

Mark Morley is Technical Production Manager for TED AV. "The Artemis was the third Carnival UK Group ship refit we did in 2007," he explains. "We needed to provide mics for two lounges on The Artemis. One was The International Lounge, which is the main entertainment venue on board.

The other was The Horizon Lounge, wrapped around the funnel at the top of the ship, which is more for duos, trios and karaoke nights. That's more of a multi-purpose venue." In The International Lounge TED installed an eight-way system comprised of four EM3532-U Sennheiser Receivers, four SKM 3072-U handheld mics, nine SK 3063-U beltpacks, ten HSP 4-4-3 radio mics, and four MKE 2-4 Gold lavalier mics routed through two A 2003 UHF directional antennas and one ASA 3000 antenna splitter.

The Horizon Lounge had slightly simpler requirements that were met with two Sennheiser SKM 535 G2 handheld transmitters, two HSP 2-EW3 omni-head mics and two 09832 MKE 2-EW-3 Gold lavalier mics, paired with two SKM 500 bodypack transmitters, two EM500 G2 rack-mount receivers and two A 2003 antennas.

For TED AV, the choice of microphone system was a quick and simple one. "P&O wanted to renew their audio equipment," continues Morley. "We always use Sennheiser and it's also P&O's microphone of choice. Most of their ships have always had Sennheiser in them, and those that haven't are being re-equipped with Sennheiser. "We only ever hear back from Carnival if something goes wrong," he laughs. "So far we've had no complaints."