Amsterdam’s Openluchttheater (Open AirTheater) provides a venue for musical and dramatic entertainment, and hosts free concerts during the summer. But with the city encroaching on its space, local residents initiated legal proceedings to ban acts using amplified sound reinforcement.
Amsterdammer Rolf Dijkstra, MD of Netherlands sound company Audiopro, was more than a little concerned at the possible loss of a venue he had enjoyed since his youth – begging the question: how does the Openlucht continue to offer musical entertainment in its modern, amplified format without disturbing the occupants of the surrounding villas and apartments?
‘To me, the Open Air Theater is an integral part of Vondelpark and most certainly part of my own youth,’ he says. ‘I would really hate to see the free performances stop as it would exclude so many people from experiencing the joy of live performance. I wanted to design a loudspeaker system that would deliver the goods to the audience without spilling over and irritating the neighbours. As we represent d&b audiotechnik in the Netherlands and have worked with them on such a variety of projects I knew immediately that a d&b loudspeaker system would be the perfect option. We set the whole PA up with d&b’s ArrayCalc software following a precise Ease model and the results have more than justified our choice.’
In collaboration with the Amsterdam audio rental company Peak Audio, Dijkstra devised a system design combining d&b C-Series C7-Tops with B4 cardioid subwoofers, driven by d&b D12 amplifiers. ‘The B4s are placed as a calculated bass array with distances and delay times defined according to the simulation made in the d&b ArrayCalc software,’ he explains. ‘Both Ease and ArrayCalc were used to come to an optimum result where the total opening angle of the system is small enough to keep the bass only in the park, directed at the listeners and wide enough for every visitor to have good intelligibility combined with a punchy low end.’
‘The Park, the venue and the summer events are a unique part of our city,’ says Peak Audio Managing Director, Will-Jan Pielage. ‘As Amsterdammers, we have agreed to sponsor the d&b system for the next two seasons as we are that confident about the quality and accurate coverage of the loudspeaker system.’
The kick off for the new season was on 5 June with guest band, The New Cool Collective. Despite levels of nearly 100dB at the FOH mix position, there were no complaints from any of the neighbours. Meanwhile, Vondelpark visitors were assured their free entertainment in the leafy space beloved of Amsterdammers for 147 years.
More: www.audio-pro.nl
More: www.dbaudio.com
More: www.democracyforlisteners.com
