Slamhammer Productions provided audio, staging and video for a sold-out show that featured Grammy Award winner Imagine Dragons and local hip-hop artist Atmosphere playing to an enthusiastic crowd of over 30,000 at the Target All-Star Concert, held at TCF Bank Stadium on the University of Minnesota campus a few days before the 2014 Major League Baseball All-Star game.
To get the depth and impact of coverage required, Slamhammer set up a Martin Audio loudspeaker system consisting of 16 W8LCs per side for the main hangs, 10 (stage right) and 14 W8LCs per side as out fill, a hang of two W8LMDs as center down fill, four W8LMs across the front lip of the stage for additional front fill.
Low end was delivered by 40 WSX subwoofers ground-stacked in front of the stage. Two delay towers with 12 W8LM loudspeakers each were set up 175 feet back in the audience.
Even though Slamhammer had done three smaller shows at TCF Bank Stadium, there were still particular challenges given the size and high profile nature of the event.
According to company President Peter Skujins, “We were faced with long throws of over 400 feet and were limited in terms of rigging capacity. The mobile stage we were using is a beautiful structure with a huge total capacity, but you eat that up pretty quick with multiple hangs weighing over 6400 lbs on the roof. We were also concerned about having a major sightline problem with the delay towers because it was a seated house.
“Fortunately, these all turned out to be non-issues because the W8LM is a very compact box and the Martin Audio system did what it’s supposed to do,” he continues. “It sounded great and everyone was really happy with the coverage and audio quality, including our client Major League Baseball, who called the concert ‘a huge success’.”
