From 25 February to 16 March 16, the 72,600-seat stadium hosted a nightly double bill of two hours of rodeo action immediately followed by an hour-long concert from a world-class artist. To be expected, the concert list included a long list of contemporary country music favourites like Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, Zac Brown Band, Kenny Chesney and Jason Aldean. But the schedule was also interspersed with a fairly broad range of other popular musical artists, including Mary J. Blige, Bruno Mars, Pitbull, Styx, Demi Lovato and Julión Alvarez, among others.
This year, for the very first time, RodeoHouston also extended its normal 20-day run by an extra night for a concert-only performance on 17 March from the iconic George Strait as part of his farewell The Cowboy Rides Away Tour. Without a rodeo event scheduled earlier that day, an additional 7,400 seats were added to the floor area enabling the sold-out show - which also featured Martina McBride and Randy Rogers Band - to break Reliant Stadium's largest attendance record with 80,020 fans present.
Houston-based LD Systems has long been the exclusive audio provider for the Rodeo and last year made the recommendation to the Show's COO Leroy Shafer, CEO/President Skip Wagner and the organization's executive committee that they raise 2013's production values through the use of an L-Acoustis K1 system. The Rodeo agreed and, as a result, LD Systems purchased nearly 400 enclosures and 150 amplified controllers from L-Acoustics in the fall of 2012.
Using L-Acoustics' Soundvision acoustical modelling software, the manufacturer and LD Systems collaborated on an ideal system design for Reliant Stadium that utilised 280 enclosures powered by 48 LA-RAK touring amplifier racks. The system comprised two concentric rings of loudspeakers - an inner ring of K1 arrays to address the lower bowl seating areas, plus an outer ring of KUDO arrays to cover the upper bowl seats.
Inner arrays were divided into two different configurations. The eight hangs along the longer east and west sides of the arena were comprised of four K1-SB subs, nine K1 elements and six KARA down-fills, while the four arrays flown facing the north and sound end zones featured four K1-SB and ten K1. To minimize both the cable runs and gear footprint, LA-RAKs were stacked on top of each array - three on arrays with KARA down-fills, and two on those without.
For upper bowl coverage, LD Systems flew 12 outer arrays each made up of six KUDO enclosures and topped with a single LA-RAK.
For concert monitoring down on the stage in the centre of the arena, the sound reinforcement company supplied a dozen 115XT HiQ wedges and two SB18 subs, all powered by four LA8s.
To accommodate the extra 7,400 floor seats for the final evening's concert, LD Systems supplemented its system that night with four additional six-cabinet KUDO arrays, two six-cabinet KARA arrays and four four-cabinet ARCS II arrays, complemented by 24 SB28 subs on the floor and 13 self-powered 108P enclosures for front-row coverage. This brought the total L-Acoustics loudspeaker count for the closing show up to 369.
(Jim Evans)
