I’ve had the great good fortune to attend so, so many notable concerts and live events over the past 20 years. All due to my job, and the fact that so many folks working in professional audio are incredibly gracious in sharing their insights and working knowledge.

One of the most memorable experiences is being at the Houston Livestock & Rodeo (also known as Rodeo Houston and in fact, the world’s largest rodeo event) a dozen or so years ago, where Rob McKinley and his Houston-based LD Systems team took me through the system they’d developed to serve the event, which was then hosted at the Astrodome. At one point we were up in the catwalks checking out the amplifier racks, and then Rob ascended a short ladder, told me to follow, popped a hatch…

And just like that, we were standing on the roof of the Astrodome, known at one point as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” surveying greater Houston on a gorgeous sunny day. Surreal.

Recently, I was invited to come back to Rodeo Houson and to also attend a technology summit being hosted by Electro-Voice at LD Systems headquarters. Another truly memorable experience, all the more so in providing an interesting perspective on just how fast things evolve and develop.

Forty years ago, the Astrodome was a “wonder” of the world; now it’s dwarfed by the adjacent Reliant Stadium, a sparking 73,000-seat sports and concert venue with a retractable roof that opened a few years ago and is now the site of the rodeo.

And 12 or so years ago, the sound reinforcement system for the rodeo was headed by modified (“souped up”) stock loudspeakers that were performing as optimally as technology allowed in the mid-1990s, backed by an early iteration of amplifier control and monitoring. It was all state of the art for the time, and worked well.

LD Systems, which has been a production partner of the event for more than 25 years, was utilizing the latest tools to the highest degree of possible effectiveness. But today, as the saying goes, it’s a whole different ballgame.

Where It Is Now...
The annual Rodeo Houston is attended by at least 1.8 million people annually. It’s held over the course of three weeks every spring, and each night. the event presents a rodeo competition followed by a concert featuring A-list performers, with shows by country stars like Toby Keith, Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts augmented by performances from a wide range of musical styles - for example, Gladys Knight, Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana & Ramon Ayala were on the bill this year.

LD Systems has superbly managed the transition from the Astrodome to Reliant Stadium, where the roof is closed for the duration of the event. They’ve steadily developed and put into place a host of production elements that serve and enhance the unique goals presented by this unique event.

One of the primary elements has been development of a house sound system capable of delivering concert quality sound to every seat in the venue, with the performances originating from a stage rolled out into the middle of the floor level following the rodeo. The stage rotates during each concert, providing everyone with a variety of views of the performers - front, side, back and every degree in between.

The whole scene is a bit surrealistic. The traditional concert setup at most stadiums has the stage positioned toward one end of the venue, with an array-based system capable of high-level reinforcement on the floor on up through seating levels, but at Reliant Stadium, the stage is smack dab in the middle of the floor with the audience confined to seating all the way around - no crowd is allowed on the floor.

The challenge is how to deliver impactful concert sound to this massive, remote “in the round” configuration, to draw the audience to (and into) a live musical performance happening on a stage that’s rather far away and surrounded by hundreds of yards of darkness all the way around.

How It Works:
Here’s the highly effective approach developed by LD Systems:

The entire system is installed into Reliant Stadium well in advance of the kickoff of the rodeo.

The loudspeaker contingent is comprised of 112 Electro-Voice X-Line modules divided into 12 distributed line arrays made up of eight or ten Xvls (90-degree horizontal dispersion “long throw”) and Xvlt (120-degree horizontal dispersion “medium throw”) boxes.

The arrays are flown in carefully determined positions to cover seating from the front row all the way up, and all the way around, with each array receiving alternating left and right channel output to produce a stereo image around the room. The very top seats in certain regions still served by some of the “high-Q” stock loudspeakers from the previous system serving the Astrodome.

All line arrays and loudspeakers are powered by EV P3000RL and TG-7 remote control amplifiers (located in the catwalks) running IRIS-Net control and supervision software. Specifically, 54 amplifiers per side are racked on two catwalks over 200 feet above the ground, powering 12 eight and ten-box hangs of X-Line Xvls and Xvlt, with each array alternating left and right channel output for a full coverage stereo image around the room.

The IRIS-net control adds a layer of comfort, allowing the system techs to constantly monitor the entire system to be sure all arrays are performing optimally.

The most notable new sound system element this year is that all system processing was via EV NetMax with FIR-drive. Fourteen NetMax N8000 controllers were deployed, to be exact.

In his straight-up, low-key manner, LD Director of Production Services Robert Ausmus told me, “the new FIR filter technology has taken the system performance to a whole new level.”

The bottom line is that the system works. Exceptionally well, in fact.

I walked the entire venue throughout the concert the night I attended (Clint Black), and coverage was smooth and consistent - no hot or dead zones. Good stereo imaging wherever feasible, and regardless, full-range, concert-level audio was present everywhere. Intelligibility was quite high.

Rob Ausmus also offered a humorous comment on how visiting concert engineers handle mixing on the system: “Most drive it; a few wreck it.” The bottom line is that even with all of the great technology that’s expertly assembled and supervised by the LD Systems team, one can surmise that this is a system unlike anything most engineers have ever dealt with, and as Rob indicates, it presents unique challenges. Unless they’re making a return trip to the rodeo…

Also helping to further insure absolute consistency this year is that in tandem with the NetMax processing, EV Tech Support’s George Georgallis had worked with LD Systems prior to the event in establishing a series of IRIS-Net settings particularly for this system and event. (Check out screen shots of some of the IRIS-Net pages here).

Back To School
Meanwhile, I was also fortunate to be joining more than 120 pro audio professionals from around the world who were attending the Electro-Voice PA Roundup, a three-day technology summit presented by the Bosch Communications Systems Division, held at LD Systems’ spacious 85,000-square-foot facility.

The PA Roundup offered a wide-ranging program of seminars, demonstrations, and presentations that offered in-depth updates on FIR-drive, NetMax N8000-1500 processing, EV transducers, amplifiers, and rigging, and IRIS-Net V2.0 system control and supervision software.

The new PRO6 digital mixing system from Midas was also on hand, with my long-time friend Paul Carelli providing the overview. A wide range of EV engineering, product management, and sales team members did a great job on the introductions and discussions, with two highlights being Rob McKinley and Robert Ausmus giving a detailed presentation on their long association with Rodeo Houston, and special guests Phil Scobee of Morris Entertainment and Harry Witz of Clair Global offering presentations covering their work with EV.

Phil walked us through his X-Line/NetMax/IRIS-Net system design for the Kenny Chesney tour – the largest touring EV rig in the world; Harry shared stories from his long association with EV and discussed his latest X-Array system design for the AC/DC Black Ice world tour.

It was also really fun talking with Phil again; I’d originally met him years ago for a gig at the “Unidome” on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa (an acoustical nightmare if there ever was one) as Chesney was making his first big push as a bonafide top-drawing artist.

I’d be remiss in not pointing out something else of vital importance: the food was excellent. These guys know how to keep a crowd happy! (True success is often in the details…)

I began by noting my great good fortune all these years, and that’s the way I’ll conclude. We can draw so much from these types of experiences, and to me, it fits under this broad umbrella: a lot of really smart folks work in this business at every level, be it manufacturer, sound company, engineer, technician, and it’s wonderful when they come together in advancing the profession of sound reinforcement.

Be sure to take our Photo Gallery tour of the system for this event, as well as views from the EV PA Roundup educational program.