The week-long Summer Nostos Festival (SNFest) at the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center in Athens, Greece saw United Technical Group (UTG), the largest sound company in Greece, deploy Clair Brothers C-series arrays for both main stages.
Specifically, Mega-Sound (part of the Oikonomopoulos Group), Clair Brothers’ distributor in Greece, and UTG were called on to provide the loudspeaker systems for the vast Great Lawn stage, as well as for the smaller “floating,” stage set up alongside a neighboring canal. “This huge national festival, the biggest cultural event of the year in Greece, represented a perfect opportunity for the first official presentation of the Clair Brothers C-series line arrays – the C12 and C8 systems,” states Says, Ioannis Oikonomopoulos, founder and CEO of the Oikonomopoulos Group. “It was an unveiling to the public and the press, who got their chance to hear Clair Brothers products in action. What a success.”
More than 30 acts and hundreds of musicians (including large orchestras and choirs) performed on both stages throughout the week. The musical styles ranged from techno and traditional ethnic music to rock ‘n’ roll and opera. Says Oikonomopoulos, “Artists and engineers were amazed with the clarity and definition of mid/highs that were simultaneous to the very impactful lows, all with very even and powerful sound distribution.”
On the technical side, the C-Series C8 (with eight-inch woofers) is a three-way active (bi-amp with passive mid/hi) compact line array element with frequency response of 60 Hz to 20 kHz. The accompanying subs are the Clair Brothers CS118s, single 18-inch subwoofers. The larger C-Series C12 loudspeaker is also a three-way with two 12-inch woofers, and twice the mid/hi as the smaller C8, it’s deployed with the larger double 18-inch CS218-M subwoofers.
“The fact that there were artists from very different musical styles from all over the world put lots of pressure on the need to install loudspeaker systems that would excel no matter who was playing through it,” Oikonomopoulos notes. “Everyone agrees that Clair Brothers, along with Lab.gruppen amplification and Lake processing (with Clair DSPs), was easily the best choice.”
Following the event, UTG is now investing to expand its stock of Clair Brothers gear. “All of the artists were impressed by the clarity and power of the Clair Brothers C-series line arrays,” explains George Voudantas, manager of UTG, “In fact, some international artists were shocked because they didn’t expect to have such a new system in Greece. The managers of the SNFest were also more than satisfied with the powerful, well-balanced sound emanating from both stages.”
