The annual Liquicity Festival recently drew drum and bass fans to Geestmerambacht Park in the north of the Netherlands, where Martin Audio partners DSL and Stairway Productions fielded hundreds of loudspeakers to serve daily attendances of up to 20,000.
Begun in 2013, the first multiple day Liquicity took place in 2017 and today runs for three days. The sound systems this year notably included a massive deployment of WPL Wavefront Precision line arrays by DSL for the premier two performance stages – as well as seven separate zones, including the food court spread across a site.
The main Galaxy stage saw 20 WPL left and right (in two box resolution), with 12 WPC for delays (also in two box resolution) and 21 SXH218 subs in cardioid (14 front-facing and seven rearward), with a further four W8VDQ for front fill and six Blackline X12 for out fill. These were powered by 17x IK42 multichannel amplifiers. On stage, six LE1500 were used for monitoring and two further LE1500 and a Blackline X118 were used on stage.
The Solar stage saw 12 WPL stacked, with eight MLA Mini and MSX subs (as out fill). Four Torus T1215 were used as front fill, with 20 WS218 and six SX218 subs. A further LE1500 and LE1200 wedge monitors, with a pair of X118 were used on stage, with all passive enclosures powered by nine iK42.
On the third Lunar stage, playback was through 12 Martin Audio W8C, underpinned by 18 WSX subs. Reference monitoring was again provided from a pair of LE1500 and X118. For the Nebula stage,meanwhile, sound reinforcement turned to Blackline, with a pair of Blackline H3T+, four WS218 and a pair of X15.
To equip other areas, Stairway Productions dipped into several of Martin Audio’s other ranges, including CDD-Live 15 (for Temple), FlexPoint FP8 (for Mirror Palace) and Torus T1215 (for the Mobile stage), all with complementary subs.
According to Martijn de Jong, Product Manager (Audio) at Ampco Flashlight Sales, Martin Audio’s Dutch distributor, with three tented stages – the largest a circus ‘big top’ pumping out very loud music – noise control over the wider area was the real issue.
‘The two largest stages ran in cardioid set-up, which worked great and made sure the people living around the festival grounds had no noise pollution,’ he says. ‘Also, Wavefront Precision was tapered off towards the back of the site so that it was fairly quiet – and this did wonders for the noise control. But the advanced control you have generally with a Martin Audio system helped contain the sound.’
Rental company DSL has wide experience with Martin Audio systems and made a D3 drawing for the main stage (in Martin Audio’s Display 3 software) mainly to visualise the performance of the sub array as much as to predict the behaviour of Wavefront Precision. The cardioid set-ups, in combination with a dB(C), calculated by Event Acoustics, ensured that the event was able to stay within the confines of permitted sound levels.
The weekend, which saw Pendulum, Andy C and Dimension among the headliners, was an unqualified success – according to de Jong, it had been the first time the event had been staged with Martin Audio rig. ‘Despite having to build the system from the ground up, the process was pretty quick with the tools we have at our disposal in D3.’
He reports that both DSL and Stairway Productions received unqualified praise for the sound, the Liquicity promoters themselves also expressing satisfaction, while Stairway Productions decieved similar feedback from the areas for which it was responsible.
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