contour with Meyer Sound at MAYDAY's „Empire“
April 30th is MAYDAY-day. Since fifteen years, the 'mother of all raves' takes place at the 'Westfalenhalle' in Dortmund/Germany. The event's name might be a hint on the date, one could think. Yet the first MAYDAY took place on a December 14th; 1991 in Berlin, in order to save the east-german youth radio station DT64. While DT64 has stopped broadcasting long ago, the MAYDAY survived and the only help necessary is technical assistance.
Help was provided this year by Meyer Sound for the first time. contour Veranstaltungsservice GmbH from Overath took the task of sounding the second biggest floor in the Westfalenhalle named „Empire“, an 1800 square meter location with an area of 25 x 45 meters which needed to be sounded. Actually not a very big area, but MAYDAY always means a battle of material, and whoever participates here, brings in heavy artillery. This is what the visitors expect, and it also matched the motto of this year's MAYDAY, which was staged for the very first time by I-Motion GmbH: „New Euphoria“. All three MAYDAY floors presented themselves with a unique musical profile and a matching headliner - this being another first. At „Empire“, accounted for by contour, the hard stuff was played: Techno and Hardtechno with Sven Väth as headliner.
Not an easy task. But Frank „Gecko“ Kasper, with Ralf Wolters the leading system engineer, looks back on eight years' experience on mayor techno-events with contour. From „Nature One“ and „Liberty One“ to „Winterworld“ and „Ruhr in Love“, contour has yet mastered all floor-sizes.
To the „Empire“, Kasper brought along a large number of Meyer Sound equipment, in total 84 speakers:
- 28 x MICA Compact High-Power Curvilinear Array speakers
- 18 x M’elodie Ultracompact High-Power Curvilinear Array speakers
- 30 x 600 HP Compact High-Power Subwoofer
- 8 x 700 HP UltraHigh-Power Subwoofer
Furthermore 1 x Sim 3 Audio Analyzer, 3 x Galileo Speaker Management System, and 1 Remote Monitoring System.
For tops, Kasper decided to use a 6 point sounding and flew 4 arrays of 5 x MICA and 3 x M’elodie each outside, two smaller arrays of 4 x MICA each adding to that on the inside. The subwoofers were grouped in three specific systems. Under the stage an arc of 8 positions with 16 600 HP in total; 8 x 700 HP end-fired in four double packs in the centre of the hall and 14 x HP 600 in the entrance area.
Here at the entrance to the „Empire“, the eye of the needle at this location, Kasper had to solve the biggest problems, as no speaker was to stand on the floor for safety reasons. „A far left and far right stacked version would have been possible“, Kaspar explains, „ but it would have been necessary to create an extensive barrier, and it would have caused the typical acoustic cancellations“. Not an option for Kasper. Techno is still measured in bpm after all. Thus a special rigging solution was developed at contour, which then was crafted in the in-house workshop. Finally 14 x 600 HP were flown in two rows, each 7 speakers deep over the entrance, free of extinctions and without ground contact.
Of all things one of the major advantages of Meyer speakers gave Kasper some headaches: „The very low distortion factor of the Meyer Sound systems worried me previous to the event. I thought maybe the subjective hearing impression might be to low.“ Background for these worries was the strict decision of Kasper to limit the sound level at 110 decibel. „You can discuss for ages about what sound level is right and necessary for an event like MAYDAY … I limited the sound at 110 decibel, measured on the dance floor. Some maybe thought it might not be loud enough, maybe it wasn't 'painful' enough for a few … but even more energy, over 10 hours nonstop, that's just to powerful and dangerous.“
The sound pressure was wholesome over the complete width of the location, mood and sound were fantastic. „I think we hit the nerve of the organizer as well as the audience's“, is Kaspers conclusion. And at the end of the day, thats what its all about on a rave: hitting the nerve.
source: "Meyersound.de