The Navasartian Games are an Olympics-style, 8-week sporting event for Armenian-American athletes and youth scouts that espouses the group’s motto: “Rise and Raise.” Organized by Homenetmen Western USA, this year’s games included 300 teams, 3,200 athletes, 1,100 scouts and attracted more than 40,000 spectators over its 8-week run.
Los Angeles-based Neptune Productions provided full production services, including sound reinforcement with VUE Audiotechnik loudspeakers, for the games’ festival and closing ceremonies over the 4th of July weekend at the Birmingham Community Charter High School in Van Nuys, California. Performances over the 4-day weekend included everything from full bands, live sports commentary and a youth theatrical presentation.
Neptune, which has provided full production services for the past 25 consecutive festivals, deployed VUE al-class line arrays for the second year running. The system was anchored by 2 clusters of 8x al-8 line array elements, 4x al-4a per side as side fills, 8x hs-28 ground-stacked dual-18 ACM subwoofers, and 12x hm-112s as stage monitors – all driven by 4x v-6, and 6x v-4 VUEDrive system engines. While a Yamaha M7 console handled the main mix, and a Yamaha LS9-32 the monitor mix.
According to Neptune Production’s president, Raffi Ganoumian, the team specified the VUE al-class for the second year running. “The reason we used the VUE rig for the second year in a row for this event was it is quick, easy, and simple to deploy. And configuring the system is a snap with the EASE Focus Software that my front of house engineer to input parameters for the mixed al-8 and al-4 array and have it sounding amazing in no time at all.”
Little did the Neptune crew know, but the 4th of July weekend weather put the system to the test with high temperatures in the triple digits most of the weekend — with a peak high of 117 Fahrenheit on July 6, and a nightly low only in the mid-80s. “In spite of a major heat wave that gripped the Valley over the entire weekend, the VUE system performed flawlessly through the hottest days with zero failures or malfunctions. I remember a moment when the air felt cool and I checked the temperature and it was still 91 degrees,” remarks Ganoumian.
But, most importantly, he received accolades from front of house engineer, Saro Koujakian; monitor engineer Eric Brown; and system engineer, Alykhan Sayani (who also filled in as monitor engineer for a full day). “While people were pretty impressed with the VUE rig in 2017, our first year using it at the event, they were even more impressed this year as my team really got familiar with the system’s capabilities and were able to really maximize performance. It’s great knowing that the VUE rig helped achieve the spirit of the event — to “Rise and Raise” — even in spite of the intense heat wave felt really great,” says Ganoumian.
