Glen Ellen, CA––For the last 26 years, the B.R. Cohn Winery and Olive Oil Company has held a Charity Fall Music Festival in the heart of the Sonoma Valley wine country.
Owner Bruce Cohn, who also manages the Doobie Brothers, is the guiding force behind this star-studded musical event that benefits a host of local charities. This year the bill featured the Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald and Friends, Kenny Loggins, Buddy Guy, The Turtles, Dave Mason, War, Lara Johnston and others over a two-day period.
Sacramento Production Services provided audio and staging for the first time this year, largely on the recommendation of John Procaccini, Production Manager for the Festival and Doobie Brothers FOH Engineer Gary Hartung. Gary had worked with Martin Audio in the past and was familiar with the W8LC line array system and knew it would work well for the festival to provide better coverage and SPLs throughout the venue.
“The event was a real success,” explains SACPS’ Keith Wackford. “It’s the first time in 26 years that every act was on stage, on time. Kenny Loggins actually got onstage three minutes early! The crews and staff on both sides were great and we did a lot of hard work to make sure we had what we needed to pull this event off.”
According the Wackford, the main stage speaker system consisted of 9 Martin Audio W8LCs per side for the main hangs; 6 W8LCs a side for out fill; 14 ground-stacked W8LS subwoofers; two W2s for front fill; two WT3s for drum fill, 14 LE12J stage monitors and a pair of W8Cs with S218X subs per side for side fill.
Separate consoles were brought in for the festival; a pair of Yamaha PM5Ds at FOH and a pair of PM5Ds for Monitors. Three racks of Lab Gruppen PLM20Ks powered the system.
Crew for SACPS included Keith Wackford (FOH), Dwayne Wise (System Engineer), Rick Stansby (Monitor Engineer), and Evan Drath (Asst. Monitor Engineer). Rick Santell (Huey Lewis) was Stage Manager.
Asked about reaction to the Martin Audio system, Wackford enthuses “Everyone loved it. Fans at the Festival thought this was the best sounding year ever. The Doobie Brothers’ FOH and Production Manager said it was one their best years yet. At the end of the night when the trucks were loaded, John Procaccini said ‘you hit the ball out of the park’.”
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About Martin Audio®
Founded by audio engineer David Martin in 1971, Martin Audio pioneered the use of all-horn-loaded bass designs in world-class touring loudspeaker systems for groups such as Pink Floyd, ELP and Supertramp. Located outside of London, Martin Audio now embodies a sophisticated mix of acoustic design, research, mathematical modeling and software engineering for a wide range of products in the installation, cinema and touring sound markets.