SAN DIEGO – Show Imaging’s concert division, Pro Systems, deployed over 250 L-Acoustics loudspeakers for all three stages at the recent CRSSD MMXXV Spring festival. Held March 1 and 2, the event drew an estimated 16,000 revelers each day with performances by Justice, Fisher, and Kavinsky, among others.
More details from L-Acoustics (www.l-acoustics.com):
Each year, nearly a month before thousands of house rats and techno-heads make their late-March pilgrimage to Miami for Ultra Music Festival, many of those same EDM aficionados flock to San Diego for the season’s first – and last – major electronic music festival, CRSSD, hosted twice a year in March and late September. The recent two-day MMXXV Spring event, organized by local promoter FNGRS CRSSD, celebrated the biannual festival’s tenth anniversary at Waterfront Park, where an estimated 16,000 concertgoers a day danced to their favorite DJs and artists performing on L-Acoustics K Series professional sound systems supplied by nearby Vista-based Show Imaging and its concert division, Pro Systems.
Show Imaging has supported CRSSD festival management and production since 2015. In 2021, Pro Systems supported CRSSD audio deployments, and this year deployed L-Acoustics PAs across all three stages: Ocean View – hosting festival headliners Fisher and Justice – The Palms, and City Steps. “The associated CRSSD genres of house and techno demand clarity and headroom across the entire frequency spectrum. L-Acoustics K Series boxes and tools like Soundvision and Network Manager allow us to extract every bit of headroom from the system,” says Show Imaging Director of Audio Services Elliot Carroll. “Putting the energy in the exact spots we need it is remarkably easy with this system, and the sound and impact it delivers are second to none.”
While Ocean View looked like a traditional large festival stage, both City Steps and The Palms featured distributed systems flown from a long and narrow truss structure used for shade. “The design of these stages lent itself to a distributed system, which both looked great and allowed us to keep reasonable SPL levels at the property line of the park,” Carroll shares, explaining that CRSSD’s prime location in downtown San Diego carries a responsibility to be a “good neighbor” in terms of noise management. “It’s also necessary to keep each stage’s audio contained and to not bleed into an adjacent stage’s coverage area. All sub deployments are in a cardioid configuration to help mitigate low-end bleed in unwanted directions, and using Soundvision gives us a great representation of this goal before we get on-site. On every deployment, we have found Soundvision to be an extremely accurate tool for predicting coverage and frequency response. Time and again, we are amazed by how precisely the final real-world results match the software models.”
Carroll further points to the L-Acoustics P1 processor, along with its M1 suite of measurement tools, as key to the speed and success of CRSSD’s system deployments. “Along with SPL restrictions, we have strict time windows in which we can check the audio systems at full show level,” he says. “P1/M1 allows us to system check and collect data, do all the tuning and alignment offline, load it up the next day, and spend our valuable tuning time verifying real-world conditions on the day.”
CRSSD’s main Ocean View stage sported left and right main arrays of 16 LA12X-driven K2, each backed by cardioid hang of a dozen KS28 subs, which were complemented by six more KS28 spread out across the face of the stage. An additional array of eight K2 supplied house-right out-fill, while ten A15 dotted across the stage lip provided front-fill coverage. On the deck, a dozen X15 HiQ served as stage monitors, while two A15 over two KS21 subs per side functioned as side-fill stacks. At center stage, three Kara II over one KS28 per side of the DJ mix position took pride of place as the now-ubiquitous monitors known as “Texas headphones.”
Tight low-frequency punch is absolutely essential for EDM, and KS28 reportedly delivered the goods. “Deploying a nice long line of vertical subwoofers in a cardioid configuration for the Ocean View stage has many advantages,” Carroll notes. “Coupling with the mains and steering the low end in a downward fashion, being dead quiet on and behind the stage, and having better tonal balance through the entire coverage area are all big improvements with this setup.”
This year’s City Steps stage featured three hangs of four K2 for main left/right and stage-left out-fill, plus seven hangs of four Kara II each for delay plus two rows of out-fills. Sixteen KS28 subs and four A15 front-fills were also utilized, while an A15 Focus and A15 Wide over two KS21 on either side of the DJ mix position provided stage monitoring.
The Palms stage was equipped with left and right main arrays of four K2, which were paired with 14 hangs of four Kara II each for delay plus three rows of out-fills. This location also featured an identical sub, front-fill, and booth monitor set up as City Steps.
But gear is only one part of the equation, says Carroll, adding his appreciation for L-Acoustics customer support. “Their team of application engineers is always quick to respond and help verify system deployment questions and help ensure your event is a success. Our personal experience with Vic Wagner over the years has been such a pleasure and learning experience, and we can’t imagine a better partner both in terms of product and people.”
For more details on this year’s CRSSD, visit www.crssdfest.com. Show Imaging can be found online at www.showimaging.com.
