Comprising 172 L-Acoustics speaker enclosures - a mix of VDOSC, dV-DOSC, Kudo and SB28 subs - the in-the-round show featured a main stage system and two delay rings at 100 and 180m respectively from the centre, calculated to cover a sound-field radius of 300m/600mdiameter.
The event has become an annual pilgrimage drawing people from all denominations and cultural groups within South Africa as well as Australia, UK and USA.
The goal of the weekend is to gather men to pray, to worship and unite and heal broken families. The ministry and teaching is headed up by evangelist preacher Angus Buchan. The event has rapidly grown over the last five years to what has now attracted over 130,000 people - all of whom needed to clearly see and hear the onstage action.
The 360 degree audio system was designed by Revil Baselga and modelled using Soundvision software.
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 VDOSC elements each with 2 dV-DOSC down-fills were flown, complemented with dV front-fills along each of the four lips of the stage.
Around the first 100m delay ring were two hangs of eight VDOSC a side on the east/west axis, and four flown hangs of six Kudos on the 60 degree lines around that circumference, all rigged on 10m high towers.
For the outer delay ring, four stacks each with six Kudo speakers were positioned at the north/south/east/west/orientations, ground stacked at 6m high. Between each of these were four delays - of four dV-DOSC boxes each - also at 6m 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.
The show was engineered by Niklas Fairclough owner of Northwind Recording. Niklas chose to go analogue on this with a Midas XL3 console, complete with a 16 channel extender, and an immense amount of outboard gear.
(Jim Evans)
