New York, NY – September 2009… The Colombian Independence Day Festival 2009, one of the oldest and best-established festivals in New York City, had its 25th anniversary outing this past July 19th at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. Sponsored by the Colombian Civic Center (CCC), the annual gathering is geared to promote Colombian culture, values, and traditions, as well as uniting Colombian people throughout the greater New York metropolitan area. For one day, the area was transformed into Colombian kiosks with vendors selling their wares while live music provided entertainment with the invigorating sounds of Cumbia, Vallenato, Salsa, and other Colombian musical rhythms. To help ensure a festive mood, the CCC wanted a potent sound system. They got their wish—with a sizeable setup based on components from the D.A.S. Audio catalog.
AVS Production Group, formally known as Abe V Systems (AVS), a Bronx, NY-based production group that, in addition to being a design/build firm for the installed sound market, serves as a provider of live sound for concerts, tours, and special events, was contracted to provide sound reinforcement for the annual festival. Abraham Viera, AVS President, discussed the challenges of the event.
“The Colombian Independence Day Festival attracts a big crowd,” said Viera. “While various conditions such as the economy, weather, and concerns about a flu epidemic curtailed some aspects of this year's event, it nonetheless attracted roughly 50,000 people. That's a huge crowd and a sound system for a group this large needs to have a lot of power, long throw, and broad, even coverage across a wide area.”
To address these issues, the AVS crew deployed a large sound system drawn primarily from new models belonging to D.A.S. Audio's recently introduced Aero 2 Series product line. The main loudspeaker system consisted of twenty-four D.A.S. Audio Aero 50 large format, 3-way line array enclosures—flown 12 per side at a height of 32 feet for the top enclosure. These loudspeakers were driven by Lab Gruppen PLM 10,000Q Series power amplifiers with Lake processing technology. In addition to the main left-right speaker clusters, the AVS team also erected two delay towers for supplemental coverage on the extreme sides of the area. Flown with Genie lifts, each tower consisted of six D.A.S. Audio Aero 12A self-powered, 2-way, mid high line array modules.
Low frequency support was equally compelling. For this, the AVS crew ground stacked twenty-four D.A.S. Audio LX-218A high performance, powered subwoofers. These sub bass enclosures were positioned 12 enclosures per side, arranged 3 enclosures wide and stacked 4 rows high. “These subwoofers pack quite a punch!” said Viera. “The LX-218's move a lot of air.”
While pleasant weather prevailed on the actual day of the festival, the days leading up to the event were not so cooperative—making system setup a positively delightful affair for Viera's crew. “The Aero 50 is a big enclosure,” Viera notes. “Fortunately, D.A.S. Audio's rigging hardware is very well designed. Because of this, we were able to fly the system quickly and easily, and make the necessary adjustments to provide the proper coverage for the area.”
Viera acknowledged that, with the Aero 2 system being new to his organization's loudspeaker arsenal, there was some need for D.A.S. Audio's technical support, which he reports is both responsive and very capable. “Fernando Garcia, one of our lead technicians, was in regular touch with D.A.S. Audio's Ramon Franco,” said Viera. “I'm pleased to say that Fernando found the D.A.S. team very supportive. They listened to our concerns and responded politely and quickly. It's been a very good experience.”
With the Colombian Independence Day Festival 2009 now a part of history, Viera commented on the event and the performance of the D.A.S. Audio sound system. “We've been very pleased with the system's performance,” says Viera. “The D.A.S. loudspeakers provide a good, clear high end for impressive speech intelligibility and solid midrange performance. The subs were very impressive and, combined, the system delivered exactly as we hoped it would. This system has a lot of headroom, it's very musical sounding, and numerous techs that mixed for the various artists were very complimentary of the sound quality. There's real value in D.A.S. Audio's equipment. This new generation system delivers solid performance and I'm certain more and more artists will include D.A.S. in their riders.”
For additional information on AVS Production Group, contact them at 718.904.0404
About D.A.S. Audio
Headquartered in Valencia, Spain, D.A.S. Audio is one of the world's leading manufacturers of loudspeaker systems, power amplification, signal processing, and related components. For better than thirty years, D.A.S. Audio products have been found on tour with the world's greatest performing artists and installed in many of the most prestigious facilities. For additional information about the company, visit them online at www.dasaudio.com.
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Photo info: Image of the stage at the Colombian Independence Day Festival 2009.