On January 3, 2006, the 72nd Annual FedEx Orange Bowl game kicked off at Dolphins Stadium (Miami), where the Penn State Nittany Lions played a winning game against the Florida State Seminoles. On-hand for the event was an Electro-Voice–powered sound, which delivered American Idol alum Ruben Studdard’s performance of the national anthem and the halftime show, featuring R&B artist Ciara.
Orange Bowl contract holders Everlast Productions (Hallandale, Fla.) sub-contracted LD Systems (Houston) to provide technical expertise and 48 E-V X-Line XVLS cabinets for the 20-minute halftime production. The 48 boxes were split up into mini arrays of four, mounted on 12 custom-made carts. The XVLS boxes were selected for their extended low-end response as subs were not practical for deployment in this application. To help kick out the low end, each XVLS box was powered by its own P3000RL remote-control amplifier. The amp sets were pre-wired and neatly bunkered in four separate locations along the sidelines. LD Systems also supplied X-Subs for Ciara’s stage mix, providing massive low end to augment their proprietary monitors.
“We were contacted by Gus Fuentes at Everlast Productions, who felt that X-Line would be the best bet for this event, especially in terms of delivering enough low end for an R&B concert without running subs,” says Robert Ausmus of LD Systems. “This low-end capacity gives X-Line a unique advantage over the other line array boxes on the market, one that has already paid dividends for us at the annual Houston Rodeo event series, which also needs quality sub-frequency response from the full-range cabinets, being another venue where deployment of sub cabinets is not practical. We had amazing results with our new X-Line/P3000RL combination rig this year at the Rodeo, and heard equally impressive results at the Orange Bowl working with Everlast; the show sounded amazing, and the organizers were smiling on the sidelines.”
LD Systems personnel for the event included Robert Ausmus, Matt Sterling (front-of-house engineer/audio crew chief) and Kelly Jones (monitor engineer/systems tech).
For more information on Everlast Productions, visit www.everlastproductions.com/. For more information on LD Systems, visit www.ldsystems.com/. For more information on Electro-Voice rigs, visit www.electrovoice.com.
