For the first time, Linz State Theater (in Linz, Austria) moved outside in order to beat COVID restrictions for its summer series of opera/operettas, dance, plays and galas, with the Schlosspark at Linz Castle providing an alternative setting for the month-long program in the Austrian city supported by rental company Z-VT utilizing a large proportion of its Martin Audio Wavefront Precision scalable line array inventory.
With trees and the castle itself providing the backdrop, the experiment proved to be a success. The entire staging infrastructure needed to be built from the ground up and recognizing that the audience area was much wider than it was deep, Z-VT, a Martin Audio partner, populated the stage with three hangs of 12 WPM Mini array elements, supported with subs and infills, all driven in one-box resolution from a total of six Martin Audio iKON iK81 amplifiers.
Martin Audio Austria distributor K24 Technik supported the event. “Z-VT considered three hangs of WPM to offer the optimum solution,” states K24’s Johannes Stummer. “We wanted 12 cells vertically in each hang for efficiency, using the Hard Avoid feature in the Display optimization software to contain the sound within the audience area and avoid spillage into the neighboring areas.”
Social distancing applied, with each pair of seats divided by tables from the next pair, enabling a capacity audience of 630 to enjoy the diverse program that was designed to provide a wider scope of art than previously.
There were a number of special guest appearances over the course of the month—from popular acts as wide ranging as 5/8erl in Ehr’n and Franui to puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan, and many brought their own sound engineers. According to Z-VT, “All guest engineers were surprised by the quality of the sound system, remarking on the smoothness and consistent frequency response across the entire audience area.” The same went for production manager Klaus Lehner, who adds, “Such a result would not have been possible with a standard line array. Processed systems are definitely the future of the pro audio business.”
