The Covid-19 pandemic threatened to deprive the German town of Bendorf its Summer in the City festival this year. However, restricting the event to 300 seated and socially distanced seated guests – part of a maximum capacity of 350 including artists, technical crews and staff – it managed to get permission to run through until the end of August.
The loud end of a full technical package provided by Michael Enchelmaier’s rental company, Event & Veranstaltungstechnik Enchelmaier (EVE) is a Martin Audio WPC.
A customer of Martin Audio for the past 17 years Enchelmaier is also the president of Working Group Bendorf Rockfestival, which stages the event, and has been promoting rock events and festivals in the town for the past 35 years.
‘We stopped promoting this festival in 2018 due to work pressure, but Covid-19 has brought us back together to promote an extra-long festival to show that culture and music is still possible in these times. We received a detailed hygiene concept from the government, and the local regulatory office gave permission to go ahead providing we managed to implement it.’
The town is situated on the Rhine and the location of the festival, which is this year dubbed The Corona Concerts, has two churches as a backdrop. In front there is a 10m x 5m plateau that was constructed on Enchelmaier’s advice in 2007, so that a stage can be erected on top of it. A multicore system was installed underground, providing. analogue and digital (BNC/Cat5e) feeds.
Fielding eight-element WPC hangs per side, with a broadside cardioid array of ten WS218X subs and a pair of W8LM for front fill, the system is being driven in two-box resolution using four Martin Audio iK42 amplifiers, and a further pair for the subs and front fill. The subs in use will be reduced or removed for acoustic and theatre shows.
EVE System Tech Tim Gruber, programmed and optimised the system, using Hard Avoid to cut off the sound at a nearby building 27m away, while the broadside cardioid set-up reduced SPL emission at the rear. As a result, the sound quality on the first show was first class, according to Enchelmaier. ‘Everybody, including the audience, thoroughly enjoyed it,’ he confirms. ‘The sound pressure was excellent, with smooth hi-fidelity highs.’
None of which comes as any surprise to the EVE proprietor. ‘This is one of the best systems I have ever used, and it is requested by a lot of my customers. Although it is still quite new it is already starting to get listed on artists’ technical riders.’
More: www.martin-audio.com
