Staged over three nights at Taverham Hall in Norwich, the recent Outside Live 2017 saw Event Sound & Light (ESL) provide a turnkey production system based around Martin Audio’s MLA Compact cells and MLX subs.

With headline acts Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and The Shires, Sound Designer Jason Fenn chose a full Martin Audio system for the event:

‘The concerts were sold as a picnic-style event, so we knew we had to have even SPL from the front row to the very back. On top of that, the event site was very close to a neighbouring village so keeping our off-site noise to a minimum was essential. The other deciding factor was the sonic excellence that the system delivers.’

Additional Martin Audio DD12s were used for in fill and centre fill duties, with the system managed by Martin Audio’s dedicated Merlin control rack.

Outside Live were ‘over the moon with the audio quality from the moment we turned on the system,’ Fenn reports. ‘Our ability to move the audio coverage meant during sound checks we could really contain the offsite audio spill and then open the array back up to cover the whole site for the show.’

Event Sound and Light’s FOH engineer for the weekend was Tristan Mallet: ‘I’ve had numerous experiences with MLA and never had a bad one yet. ESL are masters of patch and thanks to MLA we had a seamless operation all weekend,’ he says.

With a multitude of guest engineers and 120 mics to accommodate the 60-piece Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, ESL system tech Mark Wass had his hands full. However due to Event Sound & Light’s ongoing investment in infrastructure in he was able to create a versatile system that could accommodate the variety of acts turning up throughout the weekend. The crew was complemented by Dave Bland on the house monitor board and Richard Coombes providing the never easy task of patch.