China 2010 West Lake Music Festival opts for DAS Audio arrays

The 2010 West Lake (Xihu) Music Festival took place in Hangzhou between May 28th and June 6th, occupying a range of venues for eight days before arriving at West Lake Tiandi for a concluding two-day extravaganza. The event brought together performers from all over the world including Angie Hart of Australia, Antaraxia from Italy, Germany’s Pitchtuner, Japan’s Aloha Hula Calles, and These New Puritons from the UK. Together, the artists represented a melting pot of musical styles taking in rock, folk, electronica, and pop.

Hangzhou Sound Culture Communication Co Ltd took on the challenge of providing a suitable sound reinforcement system for the two-day festival climax, ultimately selecting the DAS Audio arrays. Included within the design were two main array columns of eight Aero 50 three-way, large format enclosures flown at either side of the stage, plus 12 DAS Audio LX-218 subwoofers that were ground-stacked in a four units across and three units high configuration. A further centrally-positioned loudspeaker cluster consisting of six Aero 12A self-powered enclosures was flown over the stage to serve as front fills. The entire system was driven by Lab.gruppen FP 10000Q amplifiers, while a DAS Audio DSP-4080 four-input, eight-output audio processor handled loudspeaker management.

‘The slogan Making Music All Over the City set the tone for this year’s event,’ explained Wang Tiequn, owner of Hangzhou Sound Culture Communication Co Ltd. ‘The first Xihu Music Festival, held two years ago, was sponsored by the city government to enrich the scene of this ancient city, which is known for traditional culture. The goal of this festival is to introduce people to livelier, trendier, more modern music. Roughly 2,000 tickets had been sold in advance of the final two days, so we knew there would be a sizeable audience for the closing concerts. As the two final days took place outdoors, we not only wanted to ensure the sound system had the capabilities to cover a crowd this large, it was equally important that it be capable of the sound pressure levels necessary to support rock music. Our DAS Audio system was the perfect match.’

Also on-site for the festival was DAS Audio Asia’s technical support representative Ron Koh, who reportedly impressed Mr Tiequn. ‘I’ve been very impressed with DAS Audio’s customer support services. Ron Koh was working to ensure the success of this event. He assisted in the set-up and fine tuning of the system and really helped us optimise the setup. I am most appreciative of his assistance.’

Mr Tiequn concluded that ‘the aim of this festival is not only to appeal to music fans but also, and more importantly, to popularise rock, pop, jazz and other music genres and help young bands by giving them a platform. There was something for everyone during these 10 days and the final concert on the grass at West Lake Lawn was particularly memorable. The music was loud, clear, and had plenty of presence no matter where you happened to be. The DAS Audio sound system was really impressive.’

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