Once each year the historic religious site comes to life as hundreds of thousands of live music fans converge on the plaza. Many arrive early, camping in the square to claim the best seats. This year's event drew a crowd estimated at more than one million spectators, largely due to the special appearance by legendary rock singer Vasco Rossi. In addition to Rossi and his band, performers for 2009 included Edoardo Bennato, Alessandro Mannarino, Robben Ford, Caparezza and Subsonica. Featuring 30 different bands in total, the event was broadcast live throughout Europe on RAI to another estimated four million viewers.
As it has for the past several years, Madema exclusively handled all concert sound reinforcement duties for Primo Maggio. The company's event sound system design featured a total of 127 Vertec system enclosures. The main PA system was formatted as a left-right configuration of 18 enclosures per side, comprising VT4888DP-AN midsize powered line array elements with DrivePack technology, with three additional VT4888DP-AN line array elements provided for front-fill. The main arrays were each flanked by 12 VT4880 full-size arrayable subwoofers, flown in arced companion arrays. For additional low-frequency reinforcement, 24 VT4880A ultra-long excursion ground-based subwoofers were spaced along the front of the stage.
All non-powered subwoofers were driven with Crown Macro-Tech MA5000VZ power amplifiers, and a total of 700,000 watts of peak power was available for the overall system. The Madema team utilised Harman's HiQnet System Architect software for configuration and control of the system.
(Jim Evans)
