Launched in 2004 as an alternative to mainstream music festivals, Secret Garden Party has grown from a single stage with a few thousand people, to around 32,000 spread over at least 15 stages. The eclectic music and arts event is staged around a river and a lake, and this year featured a Martin Audio MLA system on its premier stage for the first time.
The Great Stage was served by Capital Sound, who came to the event five years ago to address long-standing sound problems with environmental sound specialist, CBA. The move to MLA began when the festival organisers had been negotiating with a band that would require the extra SPL that MLA can offer, while still providing sound leakage control. ‘Although the negotiations with the band fell through, the organisers decided to stick with MLA,’ said Capital Account Manager, Martin Connolly.
Despite heavy rain preceding the festival, festivalgoers who arrived at the Abbots Ripon site enjoyed the estate’s beauty and music from Jungle, Kate Tempest, The Cat Empire.
Capital’s Micky Griffiths acted as system tech and FOH support; and with two MLA hangs of 12 elements suspended from the orbit stage (supported by six MLX subs a side in 2 x 3 stacks) the sound couldn’t have been clearer or punchier. This not only pleased Griffiths, but also James Brennan (also of Red Rooster fame) who books and produces the event, and Peter Tilling, as his technical production manager.
Aside from The Great Stage, the aptly named Where The Wild Things Are, set outdoors among the trees, featured four MLA Compact per side on three groundstacked WS218X subs per side. At both the Psychedelia Smithsonian and The Crossroads bar venue, they deployed four W8LM and two WS218X per side.
Connolly enthused that the successful deployment of MLA had created a blueprint for the future, and adds another festival to the outdoor event portfolio of MLA: ‘Everyone was happy with it, and as a result we will dispense with the delay towers entirely – although we kept the system in for this year, we never needed to activate it.’
