Headlined, as always, by Sven Väth, the theme for this year's festival was unsurprisingly 'Zehn' (Ten). The event's regular sound companies, North Rhine/Westphalia-based BLL and CE-Veranstaltungstechnik, used the latter's new NuQ and Aspect TA-890 cabinets at the festival for the first time.
"Being the tenth anniversary, this year was a very special event," says CE Veranstaltungstechnik's Carsten Eichstädt. "There were no big lighting effects, everything was purely about high quality sound."
The festival featured two arenas, the main one featuring 12 TA-890H touring enclosures per side, flown two wide by three deep, with six ground-stacked trapezoidal TA-880H, four TA-880L bass cabinets and eight TSW-718 subs per side. Four self-powered NuQ-12DPs were used as out-fill and a centre cluster, while two self-powered NuQ-15DPs and two B18DPs were used for DJ monitoring.
The smaller dance area featured eight TA-880Hs (two in each corner), with 12 TA-880Ls in front of the DJ, who again had self-powered NuQ-15DPs and B18DPs for monitors. "In the main arena there is a gallery which is on the far side of a lake," explains Carsten. "It's 40m from the stage, but arraying the flown TA-890s two wide gave the gallery the best coverage, while minimising any reflections.
"In addition, we were providing equipment for the second dance area for the first time and so it meant we could deploy more TA-880s there."
The NuQ cabinets were also given a stern test in what turned out to be wet and windy conditions, but Carsten reports that they acquitted themselves very well. "In previous years we have used Turbosound QLight, TFL and TSE series cabinets for the DJ monitoring," he continues. "This year the festival promoters Tribehouse and Patrick Peiki wanted to have a smaller monitor system, but with the same or better performance than the other cabinets. We controlled the NuQs through the digital interface and they worked really well, everybody was very happy with them."
Despite the inclement weather conditions, the tenth anniversary BlauerSee event was a great success, much of which was made possible by the Turbosound system. "Every time I use the TA-890s I am impressed at how easy and fast the flying hardware is to use," says Carsten. "It made the setup very straightforward.
"The wind wasn't a problem during the show, because Aspect ensures that the high frequencies are not blown away, like they are with a line array system. And despite the rain, everyone was dancing and enjoying the party to the sound of the DJs and Turbosound."
(Jim Evans)
