Kaskade rings in New Year with L-Acoustics
- Details
Completely selling out its maximum capacity of 700 vehicles, the show opened with sets from J. Worra and Ravell before Kaskade took the stage, wrapping up more than six hours of EDM music in SilverLakes’ concert area known as The BackYard.
Presented by Activated Events, Versa, and Nederlander Concerts, the event also live-streamed to an even bigger audience via the online Abracadabra Festival, which prominently featured Kaskade welcoming the new year with his full two-hour set from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. New York City time.
In addition to designing and deploying all the show’s lighting and video production elements, Pro Systems AV supplied the entire loudspeaker complement, which primarily comprised flown main arrays of 12 K2 elements per side, plus 20 KS28 subs ground-stacked in five cardioid pods of four across the face of the stage. Two A15 per side, stacked on scaffolding, served as infills for the vehicles parked directly in front of the projection screens, while six towers of five Kara and one SB28 provided delay.
Per Kaskade’s rider, on stage, was a set of ‘Texas headphones’ - three Kara enclosures strapped down onto a single KS28 on both the left and right sides of the DJ position for monitoring. Five LA-RAK II, each loaded with three LA12X amplified controllers, plus an LA4X provided power for the main PA, out-fills, subs, and monitors, while the delay towers were driven by two LA-RAK per row.
“Considering the throw distance and SPL required for a huge drive-in show like this, we were at first concerned that we wouldn’t have enough PA; but, as always, our L-Acoustics system performed beyond expectations,” shares Pro Systems production manager Tom Laveuf, who notes that his company has been part of the L-Acoustics Rental Network since fall of 2017.
“The main PA threw approximately 200ft, and we had our first row of Kara/SB28 towers starting at 180ft, pushing approximately 140ft, and another row of Kara/SB28 at 320ft taking coverage the rest of the way. Even though we pushed the system nearly to its limits, it gave us fantastic clarity and intensity throughout the entire audience area, left to right and front to back. Low frequency coverage was plentiful throughout the festival grounds and was clearly extended by the SB28 at the base of each tower.”
Pro Systems lead audio and systems engineer Noah Lubey, who mixed FOH sound for the New Year’s Eve show, points to the tools that L-Acoustics provides as key to the evening’s success. “Soundvision and its Autosolver tools were instrumental to the design of the system, which did exactly what we needed it to do and accurately performed as the software predicted. And the controllability that Network Manager offers allowed us to monitor the PA easily and confirm what we were hearing.”
