NEW YORK – Although many people consider Black Friday to be the official start of the Christmas frenzy, native New Yorkers will likely tell you that the holiday season doesn't truly kick off until the massive Christmas tree in Manhattan's Rockefeller Plaza has been lit.
For more than 10 years, Production Resource Group (PRG) has handled audio production duties for the iconic tree lighting and its related two-hour concert celebration aired live on network television. This year's event, held Nov. 30, featured performances by artists including Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Jessica Simpson, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Susan Boyle, Charice, Kylie Minogue and Katherine Jenkins, among others.
But there was also one more very significant performer making its New York City debut at this show as well: L-Acoustics' new KARA line source array system.
According to PRG's Matt Bell and Dave Chessman, the 74-foot Norway Spruce in Rockefeller Plaza was flanked on either side by six-element KARA arrays each flown over three SB18 subs, stacked in a cardioid configuration and powered by three LA8 amplified controllers.
"With its improvements in the control of horizontal directivity, KARA is really the perfect evolution of dV-DOSC," said Bell. "The phase and frequency responses are extremely smooth, and the low frequencies sound very natural – not at all like a small box trying to do a big box's job. The compact size and light weight of the enclosure combined with the ability to hang up to 24 of them in a single array makes this a very powerful and versatile system.
"But I think the captive rigging is my favorite improvement; its simplicity cuts rigging time in half, which affords us more listening time," he added. "As it was, we had very little chance to tune the system for this show since we're not really allowed to make any noise until show time. So, thankfully, the KARAs – like the KIVAs – have proven to sound great right out of the box with very little tuning necessary. They worked very well for us on this production and were ideal for the content and coverage of the show."
Other L-Acoustics systems deployed by PRG for this year's production included two tiny two-element KIVA clusters pole-mounted below the tree for fill, while much larger hangs of 12 KIVA plus two KILO powered by two LA4 served as the north and south arrays for the block. Eight-element dV-DOSC arrays, also driven by four LA4, provided additional coverage for the thousands of visitors spilling out across 49th and 50th Streets.
For more information, please visit www.prg.com and www.l-acoustics.com.
Photos by Dave Chessman
