The three-day Liquicity Festival, staged recently in Geestmerambacht Park in the north of the Netherlands, was supported by Martin Audio partners DSL and Stairway Productions collectively providing several hundred enclosures plus amplifiers and accessories site wide, including a large-scale deployment of WPL Wavefront Precision line arrays by DSL for the two premier performance stages as well as seven separate zones.
The main Galaxy stage saw 20 WPL left and right (in two-box resolution), with 12 WPC modules for delays (also in two-box resolution) and 21 SXH218 subwoofers in cardioid (14 front-facing and seven back), with a further four W8VDQ for front ill and six Blackline X12 for outfill. These were powered by 17 IK42 multi-channel amps. On stage, six LE1500 were used for monitoring and two further LE1500 and a Blackline X118 provided added fill.
The second (Solar) stage saw 12 WPL stacked, with eight MLA Mini and MSX subs (as outfills). Four TORUS T1215 provided frontfill, with 20 WS218 and six SX218 subs. A further LE1500 and LE1200 wedge monitors, with a pair of X118, were used on stage, with all passive enclosures powered by nine iK42.
On the third (Lunar stage), playback was through 12 Martin Audio W8C,underpinned by 18x WSX subs. Reference monitoring was again provided from a pair of LE1500 and X118. For the Nebula stage, the providers turned to Blackline, with a pair of Blackline H3T+, four WS218 and a pair of X15.
To equip other areas Stairway Productions dipped into several of Martin Audio’s other ranges, including CDD-Live 15 (for Temple), FlexPoint FP8 (for Mirror Palace) and TORUS T1215 (for the Mobile stage) — all with complementary subs. According to Martijn de Jong, product manager (audio) at Ampco Flashlight Sales, Martin Audio’s Dutch distributor, noise control over the wider area was the real issue.
“The two largest stages ran in cardioid setup, which worked great and made sure the people living around the festival grounds had no noise pollution,” de Jong explains. “Also, Wavefront Precision was tapered off towards the back of the site so that it was fairly quiet, and this did wonders for the noise control. But the advanced control you have generally with a Martin Audio system helped contain the sound.”
DSL has experience with Martin Audio systems and made a D3 drawing for the main stage (in proprietary DISPLAY 3 software), mainly to visualize the performance of the sub array as much as to predict the behavior of Wavefront Precision. The cardioid setups, in combination with a dB(C), calculated by Event Acoustics, helped ensure that the event was able to stay within the confines of the permit.
For DSL, Gert Jan and Ad Gomes were project managers, and for Stairway Productions, it was Menno Smit. The weekend saw Pendulum, Andy C and Dimension among the headliners. According to de Jong, it was the first time the event had been staged with Martin Audio rig: “Despite having to build the system from the ground up, the process was pretty quick with the tools we have at our disposal in D3.”
