Held in the Prince Bay Park in Hangzhou, China, each year since its inaugural event in 2008, the West Lake Music Festival returned in November having been postponed from its regular dates in April due to pandemic concerns. Three days of China’s highest profile rock and pop acts attracted more than 10,000 festival-goers every day, ranking it among the most important music festivals in China.
For the 2022 event, full service production technology specialists D&S Stage Technology – the largest rental company in Zhejiang Province –supplied all of the FOH equipment. Having road-tested KV2’s flagship VHD5 high-definition Constant Power point source system for the first time at last year’s event with great success, the company had no hesitation in specifying it for 2022.
D&S owner, Mr Wang, made a special trip down to KV2’s Chinese distributor, AVMedia’s headquarters in Guangzhou last year to experience the VHD5 system for himself in an outdoor setting and understand more about set-up procedures.
‘They had already attended a number of demonstrations and been impressed by what they heard, but they really wanted to see how it performed on a large event,’ explains Jason Shi from AVMedia. ‘West Lake music festival provided the perfect opportunity.
‘Needless to say, it was a resounding success – the comments from all the engineers who used the system were unanimously positive – so it was an easy decision to use it again this year.’
A renowned audio consultant who made a special trip to Hangzhou last year to experience the system, was pleased by what he heard: ‘This was my best outdoor performance experience in years,’ he said. ‘It completely reinvigorated my experience of music festivals and enabled me to enjoy the experience like never before.’
For the West Lake Music Festival, the main PA comprised LR hangs of a single VHD5.0 mid-hi unit supplemented by three VHD8.10 low-mids and an SL412 acting as downfill. The low end was handled by a cardioid array of six VHD4.21A (active) subwoofers which also powered a further six VHD4.21P (passive) subwoofers. Front fill was provided by a pair of VHD1.0s while an ES1.0 combined with an ES1.8 sub formed the monitor system along with 12 ESM12 stage monitors. Power and processing throughout were provided by the appropriate KV2 device.
‘The system performed exactly as we expected,’ notes Wang. ‘We were extremely impressed by our experience last year – many people remarked that the sound was a considerable improvement over previous years – so there was no question of using anything else for 2022. It’s hard to believe that point source technology can cover such large distances effectively and with so much clarity and definition, but that’s exactly what VHD5 does, and with virtually no EQ or anything else. It sounds good straight out of the box.’
More: www.kv2audio.com
