At Reading and Leeds, Sound of Music worked in collaboration with rental company Entertainment Sound Specialists to supply systems to both BBC Introducing stages. Each system comprised of five Geo S12 ground stacked elements plus two RS18 subs per side. These were all driven by Nexo NXAMP 4x4 powered digital controllers.
"We catered for 42 bands which rotated round identical setups at both sites," explains Sound of Music director Sash Pochibko. "There was always a steady audience which peaked at around 3,000 at the busiest times. Five elements per side were ample to throw to the back of the 60m deep crowd and beyond with consistent intelligibility."
By contrast, the Darley Park Summer Concert and Firework Display in Derby saw a crowd of 30,000 enjoy an evening of classical music performed by an 80-piece live orchestra and choir which accompanied the firework finale. Here, 36x Geo S12 elements were deployed in four hangs of eight, with a cluster of four front fills to cover the 120m deep by 250m wide audience area.
"The event organisers could only predict the attendance for the free concert," says Pochibko. "Regardless of whether 3,000 or 30,000 people turned up, the system had to perform, and perform it did. We pre-plotted it using Nexo NS-1 simulation software and once again it did exactly what it said on the tin. A big thumbs up for the quality and coherency of the system across the whole audience area."
Now in its 10th year, Sound of Music has grown from a PA rental company servicing local music venues, universities, student union balls and cultural events into an event production specialist supplying audio-visual equipment, lighting and staging from an ever-expanding inventory. A large proportion of business is now for the corporate and conference sector.
"Even with this diverse product portfolio, deep in our hearts we look forward to the annual summer season and getting back to what we set out to do, which is to produce fantastic-sounding events," says Pochibko. "Nexo has given us the tools to do this. Our first investment was an Alpha E series system, which helped us build a solid reputation for providing great sounding, quality brand systems. We also installed an Alpha E system into Nottingham Trent University Students Union, which was a regular stop on the UK touring circuit for many years.
"We purchased our first batch of Geo S12 in 2006 and have not looked back since. The first time we fired it up was like watching HDTV for the first time. The detail and performance of the system is astounding, particularly when you weight up the cost against comparable systems."
(Jim Evans)
