Now established as part of London’s summer festival, Kew The Music was staged again at Kew Gardens in Southwest London – home to the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse. Foe the past four years, rental company Capital Sound and loudspeaker partner Martin Audio have enjoyed a growing presence on the site.

Despite having a number of Martin Audio’s premier MLA systems on duty simultaneously, Capital was able to provide the necessary Martin Audio hardware to guarantee even coverage down the awkwardly long, narrow site, tapering off from a wider field at the stage end. The sound was carefully programmed by Chris Pyne, who was doubling as system tech.

Capital flew ten MLA Compact elements each side of the stage, with a flown hang of six MLA Compact infilling at stage right and a smaller MLA Mini groundstacked stage left to serve the picnickers out on that flank. Four Martin Audio DD12’s across the stage provided close-field coverage for those who wanted to get up close and personal with the broadside cardioid array, which comprised 14 WS218X subwoofers.

Several delay points were set, the first mast off to house left comprising ten MLA Compact. Further down the park at 20m from the mix position a second delay comprised an MLA Mini stack and MSX sub combination, and 30m beyond that was a further ground-stack of four MLA Compact.

‘In view of the odd shape, this created the perfect coverage solution and mitigated the shadows caused by the trees further back,’ says Capital Account Manager, Martin Connolly. ‘Those who attend this festival generally want to experience the artistes as they would on their hi-fi at home, and the system design ensured that this happened.’

Capital fielded an experienced crew – in addition to Martin Audio’s Chris Pyne overseeing FOH, Joseph Pearce was assigned to a similar role down at the stage, Pete Hughes was crew chief and Tom Gardner was stage tech.