The 2018 Roskilde Festival will see Meyer Sound exclusively used on all stages in a partnership that will also see the PA company assist in training festival technical staff in audio system design, configuration and optimisation.
The Roskilde Festival emerged from the counterculture of the late sixties and early seventies, a time of astonishing creativity and innovation,’ says Roskilde Festival Group CEO, Signe Lopdrup. ‘As a non-profit foundation, we have maintained that same spirit and in Meyer Sound we have a partner with the same cultural heritage and a leadership willing to push festival sound to higher levels of quality and innovation.’
‘We will offer our extensive technical resources to ensure optimum sound quality at every stage, and at the same time the festival will give us a full-scale field laboratory for new product development and evaluation of audience response,’ says Meyer Sound Executive VP, Helen Meyer.
In addition to the exclusive use of Meyer Sound systems, the agreement proposes a three-level programme of training and education that involves both festival staff and future audiences. First, the festival will hire and train its own technical staff for designing, deploying, and optimising all festival audio systems. Second, the festival and the company will work together on ways to educate audiences in sound technology, and to involve audiences in participatory sonic experiences using proprietary Meyer Sound technologies such as Constellation active acoustics and Space Map three-dimensional panning. The third level will focus on developing the competencies of up-and-coming engineers through a close mentoring and education programme.
‘We realise that hiring and training our own technical staff for sound and lighting is an ambitious step forward, one essentially unheard of in the festival world,’ acknowledges Head of Production. Bertel Baagøe. ‘But we feel this is essential to make sure we can consistently provide the very best results. We want their Roskilde performance to be the highlight for every artist for their entire summer tour.’
The education components of the partnership will be under the direction of Roskilde Festival Academy Project Manager Morten Büchert, who also serves as a faculty member at Denmark’s Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen.
Baagøe underlines that the experience of both Meyer Sound and Roskilde Festival means that the Academy will have an approach where mindset and technical skills are equally important:
‘Greater understanding of sound leads to even greater musical enjoyment, and we are looking at ways to educate festival-goers in the basics of audio science. With the launch of Roskilde Festival Academy, we will bring in Meyer Sound’s leading specialists, and together we will to offer advanced training to audio professionals throughout the year.’
From 2018, Roskilde Festival’s exclusive Meyer Sound systems will be solely supplied by Bright Group, a leading Nordic provider of audio, video, lighting and staging services. ‘This collaboration is about so much more than just supplying audio systems, and we are honoured to contribute to this forward-thinking project,’ says Bright Sweden CEO, Magnus Sjolund.
More: www.meyersound.com
