CARHAIX, France — The four-day Les Vieilles Charrues, one of France’s largest festivals, drew a crowd of 244,000 with headliners including Bob Dylan, Sting, The Cure, Garbage, Portishead, LMFAO, Kasabian and France-based artists including Thomas Dutronc, Zebda, Orelsan, Amadou et Mariam, among others. Audiolite’s gear for the event’s main stage included E15 loudspeakers from Adamson Systems Engineering.
More details from Adamson (www.adamsonsystems.com):
The largest annual festival in France takes place mid-July of every year, in Carhaix, Brittany. This year’s festival featured some very big names in music this year, artists such as Sting, Bob Dylan, Portishead, The Cure and Garbage to name a few performed on its main Glenmore stage, another 5 stages featured international and French artists from well-known to up and coming acts, including performance artists and theatre. The high profile names attracted a whopping 244,000 attendees over four days in July.
According to the festival’s organizers this event is one of Europe’s most important festivals, and they see themselves as setting up an example of sustainable development for many, keeping that in mind the festival takes an approach beyond a singular dimension and broadens its offerings to include artistic and cultural project, but also confronts all the problems festivals face such as transportation, site management, energy efficiency, health and risk prevention, as well as responsible ecological and economical sustainability with providing 12 year around salaries it is beyond a hundred full-time equivalent jobs were generated in the region and many people who have had the opportunity to train and professionalize in different sectors of the performing arts. Using local suppliers for many different business sectors are represented: the building professions, bakers, merchants, craftsmen, wholesalers, technicians, car rental services.
On the technical side Audiolite provided all sound production for the Adamson filled main stage set-up. For the ‘Glenmore’ stage, as it is named after a famous Brittany artist, sound design was executed by Patrick “Typat” Passerel, and the sound crew chief was Sylvain Turpin, with Audiolite owner Thierry Tanguy overseeing the management.
Audiolite has been is covering the Vieilles Charrues Festival’s main stage using Adamson Y18’s since 2005. Turpin was a bit concerned going from an 18″ down to a 15″ system, but his worries were put to rest: “Finally the E15’s bring more punch and more definition in the low end, no question about it. E15s exceed all existing systems in the midrange, with more definition, and more clarity. Also the horizontal directivity control in the E15 is a large step ahead. Sound quality at FOH position was amazing, at 75m closing your eyes you only felt as if you were at 30 meters from the stage!”
Interesting technical note is a design based on an idea by Passerel. A complete acoustic treatment was installed in the FOH mix area of the scaffolding. The treatment was built using wood panels, rock wool insulation and drops, nothing special apart from the fact that no one bothers to build something of its kind for a 4-day festival. The result was a drastic change in low mid reflection that is usually experienced in the FOH scaffolding wrapped with plastic rain covers. It turned out a great benefit largely appreciated by guest sound engineers, who’d like to see more often in other festival settings.
The Vieilles Charrues stage was very wide, and the mains PA measured 48.8m (160 feet) between the L & R array. A second L & R PA which the production named L & R ‘Downfill’ filled the area in front of the stage. “Throw of the main E15 PA was to 120m (393ft), then five delay towers with 6 x Y18 on each pushed it to 200m (656ft). I walked around in the far field and I have to say that Audiolite did a really good job, the coverage was perfect and sound quality exceptional, even at 200 meters (656ft).” comments Didier Dal Fitto, Technical Director of DV2, Adamson’s France distributor, who was present for E15 support at the festival.
The main system design had 48 Adamson E15’s s main system, 24 Y10’s as the ‘Downfill’ and 12 Spektrix, and 2 SpekTrix W’s as front fills. For low end there were 40 T21 Subs, 20 HLA Subs. Delays were made up of 30 Y18’s, 15 HLA Subs, 8 Y10’s and 4 Spektrix Cabinets.
The distribution was as follows: 24 E15’s were flown at the very L&R of the stage on special scaffolding, with 2 SpekTrix at the bottom of each array. Moving towards the middle, there were 2 hangs of 8 T21 subs flown back to back in cardioid configuration with 4 T-21 Subs right below the front stack on the ground completing the line to the ground, on each side of the stage. Then towards the center on center L and R of the stage there were 2 hangs of 12 Y10’s in each for down center fill with 2 rows of 10 HLA subs stacked on their ends on the ground in front of the stage under the L and R Y10 PA’s. On top of these Subs on each side by the center catwalk of the stage there’s a stack of 2 SpekTrix cabinets in each, pointing out about 25 degrees. In addition there were 2 stacks of 3 SpekTrix cabinets lined up under the Y10’s for front fill. The main delays were divided into 5 towers of 6 Y18’s and 3 HLA Subs in each with the 6th VIP delay tower consisting of 8 Y10’s and 4 SpekTrix cabinets. All systems were amplified with 20 Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q’s, 14 PLM 10000Q’s, 40 FP7000 and 2 LM26’s. Control units consisted of 4 x DOLBY LAKE DLP’s 8 x 8, 1 x MIDAS Matrix, 1 x APEX 30 bands, and 2 x MIDAS XL42, Signal distribution was handled by Dante thru 1 Fanmux optical fibre and 10 cisco Manageable switches.
Adamson was also present in Jeunes (Young) Charrues stage with Y10’s. Jeunes Charrues is the stage dedicated to new rock bands which have been selected during various contests taking place all around France.
