France - Located at the confluence of the Vienne and Goire rivers, Confolens is a commune in southwestern France with a permanent population of around 3,000 people. But each summer this small town welcomes almost 150,000 visitors for the Festival de Confolens, when 600 artists gather for one of France’s largest celebrations of world music, dance and folklore.
Originally founded in 1957, the week-long festival is organised and operated by a group of 350 volunteers and takes place at various locations in the town, from the mainstage at the Théâtre des Ribières to the Place Henri Coursaget, taking in the church of St Maxime, the Guinguette and the Halles.
The event service provider Blackline Event, located in Fouquebrune La Couronne, deployed line arrays of six Nexo Geo S12 per side for the mainstage, supplemented by two Nexo PS15 out-fills, two PS15 in the centre, six PS10 near-fills and three PS15 delay lines. Six Nexo RS18 subs were stacked left and right in cardioid mode to limit bass dispersion on the stage.
“Acoustics in the large 2,500-seat tent were quite tricky with a significant TR,” reports Jean-Claude Marsaud, general manager of Blackline Event. “A lot of system design work was done by Carole at Nexo Engineering Support, and the long throw combined with the HF directivity of the Geo S12 gave us very good control of the coverage.
“We used classic 'PS' horn configurations in the delays and out-fills which gave us the wide coverage we needed up front, with more focused coverage towards the rear. The result lived up to the simulations and our expectations. We have demonstrated that guaranteeing more than adequate intelligibility is possible with good preparation and high-performance Nexo equipment.”
Blackline equipped a smaller adjacent stage with Nexo’s ID84 column speakers atop IDS312 subs, bringing a hi-fi quality to the sound reinforcement for largely acoustic performances.
Running concurrently, a fringe festival was centred on an outdoor stage in the Place Henri Coursaget where event service specialists ScenYnc and Audio Concept by Ouï-Dire took the opportunity to road-test ground stacks Nexo’s Geo M12 on MSUB18s, with speakers from Nexo’s point source P+ series used for near and side fills – equipment loaned to the Limoges-based rental company by Nexo for the event.
“Controlled coverage was really important with an audience area and dancefloor at the front, and an outdoor dining area immediately behind the FOH mixing position,” comments FOH engineer Harold Gaudard. “The system was running 14 hours a day and was very impressive on a wide range of material, from acoustic music through to late-night DJ sets.”
Members of Nexo’s ES team, David Hochstenbach and Magali Deschamps were on-site to provide technical consultancy and support. “Blackline Event and Audio Concept did a great job to deliver world-class sound at this extraordinary world music festival.”
