On Saturday the Heritage Events Leeds Castle Open Air Classical Concert 2011 featured the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra conducted by John Rigby, playing a wide selection of popular classics. Sunday saw a complete change of pace with 'Live At The Castle 2011', featuring Europe's No.1 boy band The Wanted alongside performances from Alexandra Burke, new girl-band Fanfare, Stacey Solomon, Eliza Doolittle and Aggro Santos amongst others.
The main L&R system was Outline's new flagship GTO line-source enclosure, flown 12-deep each side of the stage. Dual delay towers, each comprising 12 Outline Butterfly elements, were also deployed and combined seamlessly with the main system to provide the necessary coverage of a very large and awkwardly-shaped audience area. A further six ground-stacked Outline Butterfly elements per side provided front of stage-fill. All the systems were powered by Outline T11 amplifiers and controlled by Lake LM26processors via Dante networks.
On Saturday the primary orchestra mix of 128 channels was handled by Ian Barfoot with 10 digital stems sent to FOH, handled by Chris Beddall mixing on an Allen and Heath iLive digital console. A further iLive handled the complex on-stage monitor mix. Sunday headliners The Wanted were mixed at FOH by Andrew Thornton on a Digidesign Profile, with all other acts mixed used an iLive 112 surface.
Barfoot also designed the system using Outline's proprietary Openarray prediction software, and commented that, "The software predicted exactly what we consequently achieved and was flawless in its execution."
After the show Chris Beddall commented, "The GTO system can certainly handle the subtleties of orchestral music as well as rock with its huge dynamic range, and has long throw capabilties without compare. I am truly impressed."
(Jim Evans)
