With headline artists including the Rolling Stones, Elton John and the Eagles on the bill at the 2022’s American Express presents BST Hyde Park, the sound needed to up its game in line with the ‘supercharged’ stage and backdrop at the AEG Live’s flagship event. Having been exclusive supplier of Martin Audio’s MLA since the event’s inception in 2013, Capital Sound responded with enhanced site coverage.

Taking note of the additional 5m height gain of Star Group’s new Titan stage, Capital extended the two main PA and side fill hangs and streamlined the 11 delay towers, introducing its recently acquired WPL scalable line array – the largest in the Wavefront Precision family. This resulted in 182 Martin Audio line array elements deployed at the event, as well as 44 subwoofers.

‘Had we used the original plot, the hangs would have been out of proportion,’ says Senior Technical Advisor Robin Conway, from Capitay Sound parent company Solotech. ‘I looked at issues such as trim height, and both visually and performance wise, by increasing the box count we managed to achieve better results, with more energy at the front. On top of that, we managed to achieve the trim height we wanted, with the main hangs trimmed at 16.2m from the ground as opposed to 12.5m previously, and the sides at 17.5m, compared to 14.5m.’

Aesthetically the stage design also had to work around a newly-created tree, the central focal point of the stage, while mechanically a wrap-around video screen was introduced for the first time – also masterminded by Solotech.

The main PA this year was increased by four elements, and comprised 19 MLA and a single MLD Downfill each side, with 15 MLA and an MLD Downfill as side hangs (two each side more than previously). Arranged in a broadside cardioid array were 32 MLX subwoofers, with six pairs of MLA Compact for front fill.

The delay positions had also been extended, with longer hangs. Of the 11 masts, positions one to five were identically configured with seven MLA and an MLD Downfill; the Delay masts six to nine behind the FOH mix tower comprised an extended ten WPL and three SXH218 in a cardioid stack, while Delay points ten and 11 were each populated with eight WPC elements.

All Wavefront Precision enclosures were driven by Martin Audio iKon multichannel amplifiers in optimum ome-box resolution, and the sound was again carried site wide on an Optocore fibre ring, which offered full redundancy.

Once again, Solotech fielded a highly accomplished technical team, working through the event’s long-term production manager, Proper Productions’ Mark Ward, with Tim Patterson as crew chief, Johnny Buck as monitor engineer, Mike Warren at FOH and Joseph Pierce as system tech. Martin Audio’s former Technical Director, Jason Baird, was brought in as consultant for the set-up.

Solotech Senior Project Manager Martin Connolly was delighted with both the onsite and offsite sound thresholds, which met the approval of acousticians/noise control consultants, Vanguardia. ‘Following propagation tests, we managed to achieve great level – an increase on what we have had in the past and with a bit more control,’ he reports.

This was particularly evident in performances by Elton John and Adele, as Connolly explained. ‘Elton John was 100-101dB(A) and Adele was 102dB(A) LEq (1 min) and 101dB(A) LEq five mins, with 75dB(A) offsite.’

Connolly says that the event had fully justified the decision made in spring to invest further into Wavefront Precision – with an acquisition countenanced by Solotech. As a result, WPL and WPC now complement the WPS system bought earlier for the Tim Minchin tour.

Along with the two new WPs, Solotech also added Torus to its hire inventory – part of an order amounting to well over 100 enclosures. ‘Had we not done so, looking at our order book for the summer we would simply have had to sub-hire in,’ Connolly says.

Summing up the event, and the technical excellence of the sound reinforcement, Production Director Mark Ward commented: ‘There were a lot of conversations about how to make the PA sound great and feel in proportion on Star’s vast new Titan stage. Solotech and Martin Audio got fully engaged in figuring out solutions and we more than achieved the result we were after – both sonically and aesthetically. It looked right and sounded brilliant.’

This year, with its expansion across three weekends, the event broke all records, selling 530,000 tickets across the event’s nine shows.

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