The two-week Hampton Court Palace Music Festival in London returned recently with a top-grade line-up, performing in the Grade I royal palace setting dating back to the early 16th century that was once home to Henry VIII, with production company SWG Events (based in Bristol) providing a sound reinforcement system headed by Martin Audio WPL Wavefront Precision line arrays as mains to deliver coverage to audiences of 3,000.
Working within constraints of heritage buildings, and tasked with creating a technical infrastructure for the event in recent years has been an ongoing process for SWG Events, with its most recent investment being additional Martin Audio TORUS T1215 loudspeakers and SXC118 subwoofers in support of its flagship WPL arrays.
Working again with promoters IMG, SWG Events head of audio Simon Purse states, “It’s the first time we’ve had a complete flagship Martin Audio system in our inventory and as a result we’ve been able to refine the design. Everyone has been very complimentary — the FOH guys are loving the system.” Artists on the bill the year included Gladys Knight, Kaiser Chiefs, Soft Cell, Kool & The Gang and Tom Jones.
Despite having a proven design template, the 50 by 50-foot courtyard still presents challenges. “It’s a massive, cobbled courtyard surrounded by walls and turrets,” Purse says. “And being a Grade I-listed building you have to be careful not only with cobbles but also shaking the ancient windows.” This required working within specific frequency response curves and managing content within control software. The lower frequencies are most problematic, but the DISPLAY software also needs to be programmed to ‘hard avoid’ the back wall.
Further complications are set from the flat floor stage which rakes upwards, as Purse explains. “We have only used six-box left/right arrays which are flown low because they have to fire up under an awning at the back. Run in one-box resolution [from the iKON amplifiers] this solution works very well. In previous years we’ve used Blackline X8 as nearfield monitors, but there is no longer any need for this. This is testament to the ability of freelance system tech, Matt Pope, who is on duty at FOH to assist any visiting techs with EQ curves and optimizations refinement.”
The main left-right hang was boosted by a center three-box hang of TORUS, (two T1215 and a single T1230) to give deliver 75-degree coverage. On the stage lip were a further two ground-stacked T1215 double cabs, stage left and right. Front fills comprised four pairs of Martin Audio WPM over the stage apron, while 12 SXH218 dual 18-inch subwoofers were set in a broadside cardioid array under the stage. Purse: “It’s all about keeping that low-end energy off the rear wall — which is closest to the sub array — and ensuring that more energy is radiated out front.”
SWG Events also provided a complement of XE500 floor monitors for artists not carrying their own package, while on each side of the stage two SXC118 subs crossfire with two TORUS T1230 sidefills—a house rig that’s available for any visiting techs to use. Other SWG personnel on duty at the event were overall project and production manager Ian Williams and Oliver Hayward supervising down in monitor world.
Pat Tunbridge, who has been Grace Jones’ FOH engineer since 2010, says of WPL, “Considering this gig was an internal courtyard inside a concrete box, what amazed me was that the system boys needed to apply no corrective EQ — and no EQ across the main left and right from the console either; that’s a massive testament to the boxes. Not only did I have a really good experience but the artist herself was particularly pleased and said how great the show sounded.”
