New York, NY (January 20, 2015)—New York City can be a scary place and it’s also a boiling pot of EDM, so it’s no surprise that the two concepts would merge in The Pier of Fear, an annual dance event staged by RPM Worldwide. Serving up sound for the costumed attendees is KM Productions, which has handled the event for the last three years, fielding a sizable J and V-Series PA from d&b audiotechnik.
“The Pier of Fear is just amazing,” said Kevin Mignone from KM Productions. “The revelers go to incredible lengths to look the part; frankly most of them scare me more than bumping into Freddie Krueger on a dark night. So if they’re going to go to so much trouble, the least we can do is honor that and work just as hard to give them the greatest sound they’ve ever heard.
Held on Pier 94 on the Hudson River, the venue is not conducive to great sound. “It’s an old warehouse; sheet rock walls and steel roof: the acoustics are a nightmare,” said Mignone. “Put simply, I realized that if we switched from a performance-style, end-on sound system, to treating the room more as a club with distributed sound, we could concentrate sound energy where it’s needed most: on the dancers.
Using d&b’s prediction software ArrayCalc, Mignone mapped the room as per an architect’s drawings. “My idea was to place four sets of four V-Series arrays on each side, pointing inwards onto the dance area,” he said. “Eight arrays in all, with a pair of J-SUBs beneath each hang also pointing inwards. We know the constant directivity of d&b systems is bankable data and the J-SUBS are cardioid, so the calculations showed the system would fire enough energy into the audience for them to feel the power and emotion of the DJs, while minimizing the impact elsewhere. Of course, I had checked my calculations before the event but we still tested with pink noise ahead of the party and realized we would have precisely the sort of headroom the DJs craved.”
Jarrod Khoury from RPM managed the event and was delighted with the result. “Kevin and the guys at KM have done a lot of work and we had a very successful event. The DJs were ecstatic and our audience had the night of their lives. We are looking forward to working with them again in the future.”
KM Productions
www.KM-Productions.com
d&b audiotechnik
www.dbaudio.com
