Recently staged at Fulong Beach in Taipei, the Hohaiyan Rock Festival saw its first use of Martin Audio’s MLA loudspeaker array – the system’s open-air debut in Taiwan.

Having previously used indoors by MSI Japan Taiwan, the system served many of Taipei’s most popular artists at the beachside location. The main hangs comprised 19 MLA boxes and a MLD Downfill on each side, and side fills were formed of six MLA elements and two and MLD. Six MLX subs were flown and three ground-stacked MLX in a cardioid pattern were staggered in three positions on each side of the stage, making a total of 18 cabinets.

‘First of all, we had to set the speakers at the lowest level we could, to prevent the sea wind,’ says Mr Watanabe from MSI Japan Taiwan, who operated the event. ‘Though temperature was variable, between daytime and after sunset, we needed to set the parameters to keep MLA’s performance sustainable – and thanks to its adaptive properties, there was no effect from the weather at all.

‘We arranged the audience area 200m from main stage, but the organisers also requested that the entrance gate, which is located 400m from the stage, also needed sound coverage. It was a simple and easy mission for MLA, but we were concerned that the sound would spill onto the second stage, and might interfere with the show. So, we set a “hard avoid” [preset in Display software] and solved the problem immediately.’

At first, the local crew was concerned with the idea of designing the sound system without a delay tower. ‘But once it was set up they were really surprised by the high performance, and also the effectiveness of the hard-avoid settings. The festival resulted in a grand success, and MLA is already being spoken about for next year’s event.’