PRG's inaugural K2 deployment came almost immediately - two dozen enclosures were put into active duty for the 25th annual National Memorial Day Concert, attended by countless spectators on the West Lawn of the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. on 26 May. This year's event, hosted by actors Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise, featured an all-star line-up of performers, including the National Symphony Orchestra, Jennifer Nettles, Megan Hilty, the US Army Chorus and Air Force Singing Sergeants.
Having supported this annual holiday event for over two decades now, PRG's new K2 rig replaces the call for V-DOSC used in years past. "PRG has been anxiously waiting for the arrival of the K2 system and it went right to work at the Capitol for Memorial Day," says Randy Hutson, GM of PRG Chicago and vice-president of PRG Audio. "We've been looking for a speaker system that is versatile yet meets the needs of our most demanding clients and L-Acoustics has delivered with the K2. It is a high-powered, full-range speaker that weighs less, has a small footprint, offers excellent audience coverage with superb audio qualities and can easily support multiple markets, from music concerts to corporate events."
"The K2 gives us more reach into large-scale venues, such as arenas and stadiums, but does so at significantly reduced weight without sacrificing power," says Mark Boettcher, project manager at the Memorial Day event and a senior engineer at PRG. "At the same time, its lighter weight means it can go into venues like ballrooms and expo centres that have a lower-load rigging capacity.
"Also, the K2 enclosures have the same width as the L-Acoustics K1, so it has complete rigging compatibility with K1 and K1-SB enclosures. That allows us to use K2 for down-fill on K1 arrays. And all of that has significant economic implications, making the K2 extremely cost-effective. There's just so much in the way of flexibility with the system."
At the National Memorial Day Concert on the massive West Lawn, the K2 rig was configured in left and right hangs of 12 enclosures each. These were flown from towers, also used for fixed and moving lighting fixtures, positioned 105ft downstage of the stage deck. Eight SB28 subs deployed in an end-fire array configuration provided the low-end reinforcement, while 16 coaxial 12XT wedges served as stage monitors. Thirteen LA-RAK touring racks, each loaded with three LA8 amplified controllers, furnished power and processing for the entire system.
In addition to the K2s, the project also used a total of 24 ARCS II systems - two hangs of five each for the invited-guest main stage, two more hangs of five for the reverse satellite stage, and two hangs of two each flanking the K2 arrays for wide horizontal coverage. Twenty-four dV-DOSC speakers, in four stacks of six enclosures each coupled with a single SB28 sub, provided delay while two more stacks of four dV-DOSC were used as guest area-fills positioned on a tower on either side of the stage, also used for lighting fixtures and video screens.
With K2's new Panflex variable horizontal coverage technology, the familiar challenge of surface reflections was easily overcome. "The stage was playing directly into the face of the Capitol building, which is flanked by stairs on either side, but centred on a large, ornate glass window - beautiful, certainly, but nothing we wanted to purposefully fire acoustic energy against," notes Chris Sullivan, L-Acoustics' east coast application engineer.
"To solve the problem, we viewed the obstacle in Soundvision, predicted which elements in the K2 array were going to hit it, then simply shifted the K2's
