Establishing a new festival at a relatively untested site in central London during crowded festival season was the challenge set for itself by the Sunfall Festival at Brockwell Park founder NVS. To load the equation in its favour, NVS called on the established expertise of RG Jones Sound Engineering, Martin Audio’s MLA Multi-cellular Loudspeaker PA system and production company, Whole Nine Yards.
For the past five years, this team has served the two other events in the NVS Promotions portfolio – the back-to-back Dimensions Festival and Outlook Festival in Pula, Croatia. Brockwell Park was to run until 9pm (the Sun element) and then the audience was to move into surrounding clubs (Fall) for a serious underground club vibe encompassing jazz, electronica, house, hip hop, dubstep, techno, soul, drum & bass and disco.
RG Jones had been approached with a task of achieving high SPL while maintaining maximum control, even frequency response and minimal offsite propagation on an unregulated site. ‘After their success with MLA in Croatia the Martin Audio system was the obvious choice,’ says RG Jones’ crew chief and Project Manager, Steve Carr.
The production company brought in acoustic consultant, David Leversedge of Aria Acoustics to manage the onsite noise. With previous experience of the site, RG Jones recommended the MLA Compact after carrying out a survey and taking into account the proximity of the neighbouring residencies.
‘Behind the stage was a busy suburban street and there were residential properties within 150m of the backstage area,’ says Carr. The decision was to programme a hard avoid preset into Martin Audio’s proprietary Display software to prevent rear sound escape. As there was no reference point for the site, Aria Acoustics set the levels at FOH at 96dB(A) over 15 minutes – and that was maintained while comfortably meeting the offsite thresholds, RG Jones confirm.
The main system comprised 14 MLA Compact enclosures per side with four MLA Mini elements providing infill. ‘These paired up brilliantly with the main hangs to provide an intimate, high fidelity sound,’ Carr says. The main hangs were trimmed higher than a normal festival rig to achieve the width and depth of coverage required in the absence of delays.
‘We designed the 12 DSX subs into a broadside cardioid array, with four rear facing, so we could concentrate all the energy up the hill. We also programmed a 3dB drop-off from the front and dance area to the FOH position, and a further 3dB from FOH to the rear of the audience, cutting it off at 115m.
‘MLA worked brilliantly,’ he reports. ‘With smoothness of frequency response and drop-offs exactly where we wanted them production were delighted and we received lots of compliments. Hopefully we have set a standard for what this site is able to achieve, and that the data collected will help establish Sunfall at Brockwell Park.’
Sunfall Festival Production Director Ben Price was also satisfied with the results: ‘RG Jones and Martin Audio’s MLA Compact delivered fantastic results and the festival is achieving wide acclaim for the quality of audio experience.’
At the conclusion of the event, the impressive bill of artists, which included headliners Jamie xx and Kamasi Washington, took over some of London’s many after-dark destinations – including parties at Corsica Studios, Bussey, The Coronet and Peckham’s Canavans.
