New Zealand (July 22, 2021)—New Zealand drew record-breaking crowds to its annual Electric Avenue outdoor festival, held in Christchurch’s Hagley Park. A full 25,000 people attended the multi-stage event, which fielded acts like Benee, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Tiki Taane.
Western Audio Engineering, the audio supplier for the Park Stage, recommended the SL-Series (KSL and GSL) from d&b audiotechnik. The crew made use of d&b’s line array optimization software function, ArrayProcessing, and noise prediction software, NoizCalc.
“To enable the festival to go ahead, strict council noise limits needed to be met,” explained Richard McMenamin, director, Western Audio. “ArrayProcessing and NoizCalc were vital in the planning stages of the event to model and mitigate any noise issues before they were encountered. GSL and KSL were chosen for the Park Stage due to their superb sound quality and their excellent pattern control.”
Reinventing a Connecticut Tennis Stadium for Music
In a unique twist, artist/engineer Tiki Taane performed on the Park Stage, only to return later to mix FOH sound for the headliner, Shapeshifter, on the same stage.
“The d&b SL System was next level huge,” commented Taane. “The clarity and frequency response to all the little mix adjustments I was making was unbelievable. I do a lot of EQ filter sweeps on the synth bass, and also on the reverb return channels for those exciting moments in the songs, and the energy coming from the d&b System was mind blowing. There was so much head room and fatness that I was more than happy with sitting the mix at 109 db at mix position, knowing that there was still more in the tank for those big moments.”
Despite those SPLs, Bevan Hancox (Dexta), the Festival production manager added that everyone was extremely happy with how the sound was delivered, especially as it avoided disturbing the neighboring communities.
