Austin, TX (April 4, 2018)—Concurrent with SXSW, the annual Southwest Invasion concert series/lifestyle village was held in downtown Austin, TX. Up-and-comers and music notables like Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Cabbarra and DMC performed at the venue, which was outfitted with gear from QSC Professional.
The system onsite included WideLine 10 Series and KLA Series line array loudspeaker systems, KW Series and K.2 Series loudspeakers, PLD4.5 amplifiers, with a TouchMix-30 Pro compact digital mixer at front of house. All that was on-hand for a series of 30 concerts that ultimately covered more than 12,000 attendees.
UNI performing at Southwest Invasion
Dr. Joe Performing at Southwest Invasion
Striking Matches Performing at Southwest Invasion
Lawrence Performing at Southwest Invasion
“Southwest Invasion worked with QSC for the first time last year when they did the sound for our Homegrown Stage,” says Liz Leahy, co-founder of Southwest Invasion. “This year, both the Homegrown Stage and Plaza Main Stage were powered by QSC. While all the musicians that perform at Southwest Invasion are incredible, the QSC loudspeakers made such a significant difference in the sound that we were all blown away.”
The event was held on the 25,000-sq.-ft. rooftop plaza of the Whole Foods Market flagship store and global support offices. Production director Rion King, a partner of the event’s audio vendor, Nomad Sound, oversaw a PA system on the Plaza Main Stage comprised two hangs each of four QSC WideLine 10 line array modules. “We also had four GP212-sw double-18-inch subwoofers across the front of the stage,” he says. “Everything was powered by PLD4.5 series amplifiers.”
Onstage were K12.2 two-way self-powered speakers downstage left and right doing double duty as both side fill and front audience in fill. Additional K.2 Series loudspeakers were deployed as floor monitors across the front of the stage and as audience out fill. A KW122 12-inch two-way active loudspeaker atop a KLA181 18-inch self-powered subwoofer provided drum fill.
Philip Ramirez, owner and operator of Headwater Audio in San Marcos, TX, ran the Homegrown Stage, at the opposite end of the plaza from the main stage. “I had a pair of KLA12 active line array loudspeakers on each side on a pole coming off a pair of KLA181 single-18-inch subwoofers,” Ramirez said. “And we had five K12.2s for monitors, four across the front and one at the back for the drums.”
Ramirez had a QSC TouchMix-30 Pro 32-channel mixer at front-of-house. “I like it a lot; it’s easy to use,” he says. “It was easy to teach the bands’ engineers how to use it. I had a good turnout of front-of-house engineers showing up with their bands. It was usually a 20-minute sound check then a 20-minute performance — five minutes getting the band up and mixing their first song then the next 15 minutes figuring out what was going to be the next act and cuing their engineer.”
QSC • www.qsc.com
