Held over two days in Torre Abbey meadows on Torquay’s seafront, the second Electric Bay open-air dance music festival promised to be ‘bigger and better’ on every level than the first in 2022, with a bigger production, a larger stage an even more powerful sound system, and expanded facilities and food and drink options.

The 2023 line-up included Hedex, Pendulum Live, Dave Rodigan, Andy C, Gardna Live and Sub Focus. Festival organisers and electronic music promoter Louder Events, again turned to local A/V company Future Technical Solutions (FTS) to supplied a KV2 Audio sound system.

‘FTS has a working relationship with Louder in other venues for both live and DJ sets, so it was natural that they asked us to quote for last year’s event,’ says FTS MD, Neil Carpenter. ‘We specified KV2’s VHD system, having already used it for events up to 5,000 people on the same site. Electric Bay 2022 brought in 7,000 people, but I knew it could do the job. Louder Production Manager Alex Anderson was dubious at first, but he decided to go with us, and was more than happy with the results.’

Based on 2022’s success, this year saw 10,000 revellers in attendance.

‘We had fantastic coverage and superb sound quality across the site last year using our VHD system, and I was confident that it would handle 10,000 people with no problem,’ Carpenter says. ‘However, we had to do some Ease Focus simulations to convince Alex that we didn’t need delay towers.

‘The system has to face the sea so as not to disturb local residents, which limits coverage towards the long part of the site. However, I’ve always felt that a line array would cause more problems that it would solve in attempting to cover the complete site rather than a point source system like KV2 that gives great energy in the areas that need it with less than half the number of boxes.’

FTS used a pair of VHD2.0 and a VHD1.0 per side as a flown LR system. Bass and sub-bass was provided by four VHD2.16, eight VHD 4.18 and eight VHD2.21 cabinets in front of the stage, with a pair of ES1.0 as centre fill.

‘Essentially, it’s the same system as last year with the addition of a fourth pair of VHD2.21s and the ES1.0 centre fills which worked really well and covered the whole of the listening zone with ease,’ says Carpenter. ‘The biggest changes were to the DJ monitor system on stage – last year we used VHD1.21s with ESD15s, largely because Carl Cox has used ESDs before and likes them. However, we had a few issues with sub bass travelling behind the stage and causing noise issues for some residents, so this year we went for an ES rig comprising a pair each (one per side) of ES1.0, ES2.16 and ES1.8. This gave us more bass control options and definitely worked much better for us. The final change was that we added six ESM12 floor monitors to the package to replace the non-KV2 monitors we used last year, as I gathered that wasn’t a popular move.

‘Needless to say, the whole system performed amazingly and we’re already looking forward to next year.’