Held in the heart of Switzerland’s wine country, the Cully Jazz Festival is the most important event in the Romandy cultural calendar. Conceived by Daniel Thentz and Emmanuel Gétaz in 1995, the festival has grown from a two-day event to nine days that attract more than 70,000 festival-goers.
This year’s line-up featured performances across various genres and over three stages, including the new Chapiteau outdoor stage. For its entire 40-year run, the festival has called on local L-Acoustics Certified Partner TMS who, this year, used L-Acoustics L-ISA technology to create an unforgettable audience experience.
‘The main reason we chose to deploy L-ISA immersive sound for the festival is because jazz as a genre thrives on natural-sounding amplification of acoustical elements, and L-ISA greatly contributes to achieving this natural feeling,’ explains TMS Project Manager, Benjamin Bard. ‘We were already in a great position, as the acoustics of the main venue are remarkably well-controlled, which made L-ISA even more effective, and significantly enhanced the overall sound quality.’
To accommodate the L-ISA configuration, the festival used a new, higher tent for the main stage. Despite the Chapiteau being three times larger than that of past years, the tent had a strict, limited maximum load, which TMS needed to consider when designing the system.
‘In addition to the load limits, our goal was to design a system that would perfectly fit the varied styles of the performers,’ Bard says. ‘While it is primarily a jazz festival, the performances go beyond the traditional jazz trios, even featuring rock sets like Stéphane Eicher this year. L-ISA immersive sound technology was the perfect solution to accommodate the diverse range of performances, captivate festival-goers and foster deeper connections between artist and audience.’
Bard and his team at TMS worked with L-Acoustics application engineer Jean-Charles Schmid to design a 5.1 L-ISA configuration of five hangs of six Kiva II topped by two SB15 subwoofers spread across the stage. Two hangs of three KS21 subwoofers were flown behind the Kiva II front system. Nine X8 coaxial enclosures were placed across the stage lip to provide spatial fill, while X15 provided stage monitoring for artists. The system was driven by 15 LA12X amplified controllers.
The new tent, coupled with the L-ISA configuration gave better, more consistent sound coverage over the audience area, and also resulted in substantial reduction of noise spill troubling neighbouring residents.
‘From the first demonstration for festival management, to the design phase, and through to set-up, calibration and show support, we received outstanding assistance from Jean-Charles Schmid and L-Acoustics,’ Bard says.
Before the event, Bard and Schmid contacted sound engineers and crew members to ensure they were prepared for the L-ISA technology. ‘Adoption of brand new technology can prove challenging, especially when the audio crew is such a big one, but L-Acoustics went above and beyond to make sure every engineer was trained, had access to the material and the support they needed to feel comfortable before the show.’
Feedback from crew and the festival-goers was positive, with Bard noting: ‘The audience feedback on the sound and the overall experience was excellent. In fact, in my 30-year career in audio, I have never had such amazing feedback from an audience. Everyone who is used to coming to the festival felt a significant upgrade in sound quality this year.’
