L-ACOUSTICS K1 at the 2011 Juno Awards Canada's biggest night in music, the 2011 Juno Awards, returned to its Toronto birthplace this year for the first time in over a decade. Staged at the Air Canada Centre, nearly eight million Canadians tuned in to watch some portion of the 2.5-hour, 40th anniversary live CTV broadcast, which featured rousing performances by Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Sarah McLachlan and many other popular native artists. While Le Studio Mobile and LiveWire Remote Recorders handled the broadcast audio, Montreal-based Solotech was tasked with providing sound reinforcement within the 20,000-seat venue. To deliver the best possible concert experience Solotech opted to deploy an L-ACOUSTICS K1 loudspeaker system. According to David Brazeau, Solotech's senior project manager, the main PA featured left and right arrays each comprised of 14 K1 elements with three KARA enclosures for down-fill. A six-element KUDO array was flown between the two K1 hangs for additional front-fill, and low-frequency impact was achieved via two eight-element K1-SB arrays flown adjacent to the LR arrays. All systems were powered and processed via L-Acoustics LA8 amplified controllers. "We knew that K1 would be ideal for the Juno Awards and it performed superbly," describes Brazeau. "The system is highly articulate and intelligible, which was absolutely essential for the award presentations and other spoken segments. And when it comes to music, K1 is extremely hi-fi and sounded fantastic across the ceremony's wide variety of performances. "As a side note, we found the Kudo enclosures to be quite helpful," he adds. "Our initial Soundvision model of the system revealed that we would need to add some front-fills. However, seeing that there was a general admission area on the floor--plus the stage needed to be as clean as possible for the broadcast--we flew a Kudo array in the center and it proved to be a very effective solution." Often referred to as Canada's equivalent to the Grammys, the Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. Hosted this year by Toronto hip-hop artist Drake, the 40th anniversary ceremony inducted Shania Twain into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, honored Neil Young with the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award for his work with causes like Farm Aid, and found Arcade Fire topping the winners list with no less than four Juno Awards. For more details on the evening, visit http://junoawards.ca. 
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