The largest concerts this year were moved indoors to the new Stuttgart fairgrounds, with Meyer Sound systems providing sound reinforcement for the first time.
The transition to Stuttgart fairgrounds offered a convenient location for the 28,000 visitors, and gave the performers a more stable environment despite Germany's unpredictable summer weather conditions. "With this new venue, we opened a new page in the festival's history and it was important for us to also move sound to a new level," says promoter Jürgen Schlensog. "And this year, we successfully achieved this and even more with the great Meyer Sound system."
Schlensog and co-festival director Mini Schulz commissioned Bodo Bergmann, veteran sound designer and Matthias Kreiner, the festival's technical director to specify the sound design, with equipment support from Hamburg-based Procon Event Engineering. The system was designed for flexibility and could be easily adapted into different configurations to accommodate the specific needs of each artist and to cover a variety of audience sizes, ranging from 1,600 to 8,500.
Using Meyer Sound's MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction program with architectural renderings provided by Jens Mueller of Autostage, Bergmann created a basic system consisted of two hangs with 13 M3D and one Milo 120 line array loudspeakers with a centre down-fill of six Mica line array loudspeakers, augmented by six UPA-1P and UPA-2P loudspeakers each as nearfield systems.
For Katie Melua's show with the Stuttgart Philharmonics, two additional arrays with 12 Mica line array and two UPQ-1P loudspeakers were added to serve as out-fill for the 8,500 visitors seated on the outer areas of the 26,000sq.m hall. As requested for Lenny Kravitz and Joss Stone, especially powerful bass support was handled by 18 M3D-Sub directional subwoofers and two arrays of nine 700-HP subwoofers in a cardioid configuration.
Monitoring was provided by two arrays with six M'elodie line array loudspeakers and three 500-HP subwoofers, also configured in a cardioid formation. On stage, Bergmann employed 20 USM-1P and four MJF-212A stage monitors, in addition to two UPQ-1P loudspeakers and two 600-HP subwoofers as foldback for the drummers and 12 UPM-1P loudspeakers for the orchestras.
(Jim Evans)
