For the last 26 years, the B.R. Cohn Winery and Olive Oil Company has held a Charity Fall Music Festival in the heart of the Sonoma Valley wine country.
Owner Bruce Cohn, who also manages the Doobie Brothers, is the guiding force behind this star-studded musical event that benefits a host of local charities.
This year the bill featured the Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald and Friends, Kenny Loggins, Buddy Guy, The Turtles, Dave Mason, War, Lara Johnston and others over a two-day period.
Sacramento Production Services (SACPS) provided audio and staging for the first time this year, largely on the recommendation of John Procaccini, production manager for the festival, as well as Doobie Brothers front of house engineer Gary Hartung.
Hartung had worked with Martin Audio in the past and was familiar with W8LC line arrays, and so recommended it for the festival to provide better coverage and SPLs throughout the venue.
“The event was a real success,” says Keith Wackford of SACPS. “It’s the first time in 26 years that every act was on stage, on time. Kenny Loggins actually got onstage three minutes early. The crews and staff on both sides were great and we did a lot of hard work to make sure we had what we needed to pull this event off.”
The main loudspeaker system consisted of nine Martin Audio W8LCs per side for the main hangs, with six W8LCs per side for out fill and 14 ground-stacked W8LS subwoofers.
In addition, two W2s handled front fill, while two WT3s supplied drum fill. A pair of W8Cs with S218X subwoofers per side delivered front fill. Finally, the stage was outfitted with 14 LE12J stage monitors.
Loudepakers were driven by several racks of Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q power amplifiers. Consoles included a pair of Yamaha PM5Ds for front of house and a pair of PM5Ds for monitors.
Crew for SACPS included Keith Wackford (FOH), Dwayne Wise (system engineer), Rick Stansby (monitor engineer), and Evan Drath (assistant monitor engineer). Rick Santell (Huey Lewis) served as stage manager.
“Everyone loved it,” Wackford says of the system and its performance. “Fans at the Festival thought this was the best sounding year ever. The Doobie Brothers house engineer and production manager said it was one their best years yet. At the end of the night when the trucks were loaded, John Procaccini said ‘you hit the ball out of the park’.”