The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, WA recently hosted The Watershed Festival, a three-day country music event, followed by a performance by Brandi Carlile, and both were supported by a d&b audiotechnik J-Series loudspeaker rig supplied and supported by Carlson Audio of Seattle, which provides system rentals and services in the Pacific Northwest.
The Watershed Festival lineup included Tim McGraw, Dierks Bentley and Thomas Rhett, just to name a few, perforning on The Main Stage with well over 26,000 in attendance. Meanwhile, Carlile drew a crowd of 15,000 in a homecoming of sorts where she took to the stage with guests including Sheryl Crow and members of Soundgarden.
“Our production manager Morgan Hodge was the main designer for this system and used both d&b ArrayCalc and NoizCalc to predict how the PA would react in a venue that presents several challenges,” explains Jesse Turner, front of house engineer and crew chief. “The Gorge is an asymmetrical natural amphitheater that has evolved over the years but is basically a stage built on the side of a cliff overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. This meant that we needed to design a system that has great coverage over the entire venue and serves the needs of the front of house engineers. We created layers in ArrayCalc to be able to have a symmetrical sounding system for FOH but also utilize the advancements that ArrayProcessing has given us in system clarity and control.”
Whereas d&b ArrayCalc software simulates the coverage of the loudspeaker systems inside the venue, NoizCalc is used to predict noise emissions outside the venue to help plan for the environmental impact of outdoor events. These tools, combined with ArrayProcessing, a designed to help provide a consistent high-quality listening experience for the entire audience and minimized impact outside the venue.
The configuration for the Watershed Main Stage PA was basically the same between the two shows but slightly pared down for Carlile, utilizing 20 J-Series modules in AP per side, 16 J8s with four J12s at the bottom and 24 B2 subwoofers were split into left and right stacks on the group. Handline various fill needs were J8s over J12s for out fill, Q7s for front fill, and three delay towers of V8s over V12s. Loudspeakers were powered by 98 channels of D80 amplifiers and 36 channels of D20s.
“All amps were connected via a Dante network through one DS10 amplifier per side of the stage and Dante AVIO adapters for the delay systems on the hill,” Turner notes, “allowing us to quickly change configurations since some artists specified varying signal path requirements; for example, stereo subs.”
The stage was equipped with Shure PSM 1000 personal monitoring systems as well as d&b M4 stage monitors. Side fill was delivered by d&b Q1s over a pair of V-SUBS on each side, with Q-SUBS for the drums. Here, loudspeakers were driven with D12s.
“Even though The Gorge Amphitheatre is a big stage, there’s not much room for wing space,” says engineer Vince Agne. “When you get three to four country band monitor rigs setup, all of a sudden you have a monitor engineer that is part of the show on stage. Having a d&b rig flown in the air, subs and wedges that are light/easy to move, but can still put out some SPL, and two racks of D12s to power it all, we were able to make our ‘Festival House Rig’ footprint very small. It’s also nice when guest engineers come up, notice we have d&b rig, and know that they are taken care of, gear wise. Through The Gorge winds, 100-plus degree days, smoke from nearby wildfires, everything worked without a hitch.”
