HAIM’s current Women in Music Pt. III Tour in support of their Grammy-nominated 2020 album of the same name, the second international headlining jaunt by the California trio of sisters, is being supported by a main system employing L-Acoustics K2 arrays and additional components supplied by the Los Angeles office of Production Resource Group (PRG).
The tour began in Las Vegas in April and will take them to more than two-dozen scheduled stops across the U.S. and then onto Canada and Europe. The full rig encompasses 32 K2 enclosures flown 16 per side, with 12 Kara per side as outfills. Eight more Kara line the stage lip as frontfills with four ARCS II boxes on hand as utility fills as needed.
Meanwhile, 16 KS28 subwoofers are deployed to reinforce the K2 with added low-end extension. Everything is powered by 36 LA12X amplified controllers running on an AVB network through a pair of L-Acoustics P1 AVB processors.
Because of the variety of venues on this tour, the PA needs for each space can vary considerably. “What’s great about the K2 is how versatile it is,” says Scott Jarecki, HAIM’s PA technician on the tour. “We’re working in a wide range of venues, and the system can scale very nicely for any of them.”
For example, the KS28 subs can be deployed either in stacks of two, set eight feet apart across the stage, or in an arc on the ground in front of a stage. Various configurations were largely mapped out even before the first truck rolled out, with Jarecki and systems engineer Tom Stegemann working out designs for each venue and performance ahead of time with L-Acoustics Soundvision predictive software and the FIR filters.
“We know when we roll up exactly how much PA we need to take off the truck, from Madison Square Garden to a club date,” Jarecki explains. “It scales incredibly well and no matter what configuration of the system we end up using, it still sounds familiar to our front-of-house mixer, Scott Adamson, with all the voicings Scott expects to hear and how it will react in the house. The system is very flexible and adapts to the venue.”
Stegemann adds, “There have been times on this tour where we are pushing the laws of physics, getting the K2 boxes to throw as far as 300 feet in some cases. It’s a very good rig to tech because it lets us push it beyond the envelope when necessary, so that front of house and the farthest seats both get the right experience.”
The overall system design is by Randall Knight, audio project manager at PRG’s Toronto office. “It was always going to be L-Acoustics; HAIM’s production manager, Chip Valentino, requested it,” he says. Knight says he considered the band’s widely-ranging venue itinerary and calculated that the K2 and Kara enclosures would provide the right balance of coverage and budget. “You must keep both of those things in mind for touring these days, and L-Acoustics gives us the tools we need to pinpoint that.”
Working with PRG engineers Jason Swartz and Andy Alonso, Knight customized the system in several ways that would help achieve both aims. For instance, they divided the tour’s amplified controllers into two large custom racks, stage right and left. “That allowed them to scale the power needed for each configuration of the system, from Madison Square Garden on down to smaller venues, without having to move individual amps,” he says.
Knight got to test his own design in a very hands-on manner when HAIM did a show at Echo Beach in Toronto. Stegemann was unable to make the show due to a Covid-19 infection at the time, and after trying to find a sub in the tight labor market that is touring today, Knight stepped as system engineer. “It was great,” he recalls, “to really know that the system you put together works so well.”
