Britannia Row Productions supplied L-Acoustics PA systems across four of the stages at this year’s Womad festival – Open Air, Saddlespan, Siam and Taste the World – on behalf of Judgeday Productions Director, Dave T.
The Open Air Stage is the second festival environment in which Britannia Row has fielded its new L Series L2, following postive results at Soho House Festival. System Engineer Sergiy Zhytnikov worked the Open Air Stage using main hangs of L2, K2 stacked on the platform for side coverage, KS28 subs in a cardioid configuration across the stage, and A15s for front fill.
‘As Womad is a world music festival, artists perform a variety of different genres including indie rock, nu jazz and downtempo, Indian funk and so on,’ he says. ‘Both the guest engineers and the production team were very happy with the L2’s results over the weekend, from consistency in system coverage to good SPL across the field.’
This is endorsed by FOH engineer Artur David, who mixed Portuguese fado singer Mariza: ‘The L2 sounded well balanced. I was happy that with our acoustic set and a little sound pressure, the low end stayed clean and focused. Props to the system tech.’
‘We should note that the weather conditions were very challenging at Womad this year; we were dealing with sunshine and 50 per cent humidity, then rain and up to 80 per cent humidity, often with strong winds,’ Zhytnikov continues.
‘I had to use temperature and humidity sensors during the day to fight this rapid change in weather conditions and update system filters accordingly, as the humidity and temperature dramatically affects sound propagation through the air. In my opinion, it offers more stability than any other line array and handles strong winds very well.’
‘Flying this PA is very quick as you only need to fly minimal boxes per side, and you don’t have angles to put in between the boxes,’ says Britannia Row Crew Chief Fergus Mount. ‘Noise monitoring at Womad is strict, and the off-site noise readings were constantly being monitored. With the extra control of so many drivers in a single box and its cardioid low end, Sergiy is able to be surgically precise about where the sound starts and stops. Even during headline acts, the off-site noise was barely registering.
‘As an engineer myself, I thought it had a great presence and closeness at FOH. I noted it has a well-rounded hi-fi tonality, and the low end is something else. The Britannia Row sound design was perfectly complemented by the groundstacked KS28 subs on stage.’
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