Gearhouse deploys hefty L-ACOUSTICS rig for annual event attended by over 130,000 Christian men
GREYTOWN, South Africa - May 2009 -- Northwind Recording appointed Johannesburg-based Gearhouse South Africa to design and supply the country's largest line array PA system to date for the three-day 2009 Mighty Men Conference (MMC) held in late-April.
Staged at the Shalom Farm in Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal, MMC has become an annual pilgrimage drawing men from all denominations and cultural groups across South Africa as well as Australia, the UK and USA. Headed up by Shalom Ministries' Angus Buchan, the evangelist, writer and farmer who rose to recognition through his movie Faith Like Potatoes, the event has rapidly grown over the last five years to what this year attracted more than 130,000 people -- all of whom needed to clearly see and hear the onstage action.
Comprising 172 L-ACOUSTICS speaker enclosures -- a mix of V-DOSC, dV-DOSC, KUDO and SB28 subs -- the PA setup for the in-the-round show featured a main stage system and two delay rings at 100 and 180 meters from the center delivering smooth, even sound coverage out to a 360-degree diameter of 600 meters. The audio system was designed by Revil Baselga and modeled using SOUNDVISION software. He chose L-ACOUSTICS to provide crystal clear speech intelligibility for Buchan, pristine sonic fidelity for the praise band, and uniform coverage across the vast audience seating area.
The stage had a curved roof with clear skins supplied by Gearhouse sister company In2Structures and was combined with a StageCo roof grid system minus the standard roof tarps. From this, four hangs of eight V-DOSC elements each with two dV-DOSC downfills were flown, complemented with dV-DOSC front fills along each of the four lips of the stage.
Around the first 100 meter delay ring were two hangs of eight V-DOSC a side on the east/west axis, and four flown hangs of six KUDO on the 60 degree lines around that circumference, all rigged on 10-meter-high towers.
For the outer delay ring, four stacks of six KUDO speakers were positioned at the north/south/east/west/orientations, ground stacked at six meters high. Between each of these were four delays -- of four dV-DOSC boxes each -- also at six meters off the ground.
The 32 SB28 subs were located at each corner of the stage, stacked in a cardioid pattern, with eight firing in each direction.
L-ACOUSTICS amplification was also utilized throughout. The V-DOSC enclosures were powered by LA8 amps, which were all networked via Ethernet and controlled using LA NETWORK MANAGER.
Niklas Fairclough, owner of Northwind Recording, engineered the show while FOH was coordinated for Gearhouse by Adriaan van der Walt. Time alignment for the PA was fine-tuned by systems engineer Jacob de Wit.
For more information on MMC 2009, visit www.mmc2009.co.za. Gearhouse South Africa can also be found online at www.gearhouse.co.za.
L-ACOUSTICS is a leading innovator and manufacturer of high-performance loudspeakers, amplifiers and signal processing devices for touring and installed sound markets. Known around the globe for pioneering and championing the modern line array loudspeaker concept with V-DOSC, the company has received numerous accolades for its K1, KUDO, KIVA, ARCS, XT coaxial loudspeaker systems and SB line of subwoofer enclosures, all powered and processed with the LA4 and LA8 amplified controllers in fulfillment of a "total system approach." L-ACOUSTICS products for the North American market are manufactured and distributed by L-ACOUSTICS US of Oxnard, California.
Photo credits: arial view by Patrick Royal; ground views by Allen Evans
Special thanks to Robyn D'Alessandro at Gearhouse South Africa for the report
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