Havana, Cuba (May 9, 2016)—EDM knows no borders, so in the wake of relations between the U.S. and Cuba thawing, the EDM acts Diplo and Major Lazer recently played a free concert in front of the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Some reports put the resulting crowd at roughly half a million people.
Sound reinforcement was provided by Cuban SR company OKeventos, fielding an Axiom powered line array as the main PA system. A total of 24 AX2010A powered dual 10-inch line array elements per side were rigged at a height of 12 meters, with Proel Edge ground-stacked dual 18-inch subwoofers giving sub-bass support among a total of 24 subs arranged in virtual (electronic) arc configuration. The whole system was driven by a Wave MaxxBCL.
OKeventos’ owner Mauricio Blanco Alvarez noted, “This is the second time we have used Axiom for this venue; the last time for a salsa band in front of a crowd of around 50,000, but this is the first time we’ve been asked to provide a PA for half a million people! It definitely stretched our rental inventory to the limit, and although the Axiom line array, which is our main system, gave excellent coverage at the front of the audience, we had to bring in every last box we had for the first and second delay positions.”
The PA was configured using EASE Focus and on the day before the show day, front of house engineer Hoffman Brendan and monitor engineer Justin Jones went to the venue to check everything. When they saw and listened to the main PA they decided that a sound check was not necessary.
“Everybody, me included, was really surprised mostly at how much low frequency pressure we achieved,” said Blanco. “We lacked a little SPL in the middle of the audience area, but in the first 90 meters, the Axiom behaved really well. The system sounded good, well balanced and the coverage was great.”
Proel (Axiom parent company)
www.proel.com
