Bethel Music, a foremost name in the contemporary worship movement in the U.S., recently headed to South Africa for a two-night concert series, including an evening of song and praise with the Henry Pike Worship Band at Meerendal Wine Estate in Cape Town where sound reinforcement was delivered to the more than 17,000 attendees by a system headed by d&b audiotechnik V-Series line arrays deployed by Golden Circle Events.
“A great deal of kit is required for a production of this size, including audio, backline, lighting, video and power supply,” explains general manager Lindsay Barton of Cape Town-based Golden Circle. “We worked closely with several other technical companies to organise the event, whilst loudspeakers were sourced by us, C&S Audio and Ultra Events. d&b’s compact V-Series line array system was chosen for its versatility and transparency of sound.”
Heavy rains on the day of the event made for a challenging set-up environment, but despite the conditions, a large-sclae system was deployed, including 48 flown V-Series line array loudspeakers, 16 flown V-Series V-SUB subwoofers,12 B22 subs in a cardioid sub array, four V7P loudspeakers as front fill and more, all driven by d&b D80 and D12 power amplifiers.
“Getting the subs to spread wide enough and to project all the way to the back at the same time was initially challenging, but with a few adjustments, we were able to achieve the desired coverage, reaching a distance of 170 meters to the back of the busy crowd and covering a width of 100 meters,” Barton notes. “Although the weather was against us on show day, the performance of the V-Series was exceptional, even with the minimal time we had to spend on adjustments whilst we worked to protect the stage and gear from the rain.
“This PA did exceptionally well,” Barton concludes. “I have always been of the opinion that the physical design of d&b loudspeakers is the reason they sound so good, and this event reinforced my beliefs.”
