Located in Gothenburg, Sweden’s Slottsskogen Park, this year’s Way Out West was headlined by Alicia Keys, Public Enemy, and Bat For Lashes. Swedish full service event technology provider Starlight provided all lighting, staging, and sound equipment for the festival.
For the main Flamingo stage, it provided a Meyer Sound LEO linear large-scale sound reinforcement system, which provided the long throw and headroom that allowed the crew to waive the delay support typically required in this venue.
“The equipment we deploy is all driven by demand, and this is why we invested in LEO,” says Håkan Axlid, production manager for Starlight. “The clarity of this system at 120 meters is totally flabbergasting, and we’ve been able to eliminate all our delay towers.”
Marcus Agnesund, front-of-house engineer for Swedish artist Daniel Adams-Ray, concurs: “The experience was great—so much headroom and clarity meant less to worry about. With LEO, you get a completely constant EQ. Unlike many other systems, the sound doesn’t change when you turn it up, which is fantastic. The configuration here meant a lot of thump at the bottom end. I’d recommend LEO to all engineers.”
The Flamingo stage system comprised 16 LEO-M and two MICA line array loudspeakers per side, with nine 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements flown beside each array. Four rows of 32 700-HP subwoofers in end-fired configuration stretched across the front of the stage.Two hangs of 12 MILO line array loudspeakers per side provided out fill.
A Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system featuring four Galileo Callisto 616 array processors and one Galileo 616 AES processor provided system control and optimization.
System techs for the Flamingo stage were Starlight’s Fredrik Arwidson and Oscar Meijer.
“LEO is a great step forward,” says Meijer. “The system is very exact, and flies quickly. I’m also fond of the pull-back possibility to make the array stay angled as you wish, whether you’re taking it upwards or downwards.”
In addition to the LEO, Starlight provided a Meyer Sound M3D line array loudspeaker system for the festival’s smaller Azalea stage.
Find information about Meyer Sound’s LEO system at www.meyersound.com/leo.
