Martin Audio Covers Three Stages at BottleRock 2016

To ensure consistent coverage and control over off-site noise, Delicate Productions of San Francisco used a full complement of Martin Audio on all three stages at BottleRock 2016, starting with an MLA system at the Main (Jam Cellars) stage.

BottleRock is a three-day typically Northern California celebration of music, gourmet food and drink featuring an eclectic lineup of 72 bands including Stevie Wonder, Lenny Kravitz, Grouplove, Buddy Guy, Florence + The Machine, Death Cab for Cutie, Ziggy Marley, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rodrigo Y Gabriela, just to name a few of the headliners.

This was Delicate's fourth year of doing audio for BottleRock and they knew the challenges of a festival site located in the heart of downtown Napa. As general manager George Edwards said, "There's Silverado Trail, a two-lane road about 40' beyond the area stage right of Jam Cellars with residential housing on the other side. And 700' straight ahead of the stage beyond the field we were on, is more residential housing. So noise control was obviously critical.

"We needed to maintain 105dB c-weighted front of house with a mitigation system in place. With MLA, we never exceeded the noise limits beyond the site with only one noise complaint from a resident who never bothered to leave their name or number out of a three day sold out festival with four stages and 140,000 spectators."

The main stage system consisted of two hangs of 16 MLA and 2 MLD (downfill) cabinets a side with 24 MLX subs in a single point source array in the center ground-stacked in front of the stage. Twelve W8LMs were used for front fills in three clusters of four on the subs with a cluster of eight W8LCs for house right VIP fill on a cantilever and two hangs of eight MLA Compact flown from towers for delays. Venue Profile consoles were used on all stages for FOH and Monitors

Asked whether the subs had a negative impact on residents located directly across or next to the site, Edwards said, "No, we were measuring at each of six wave points 100' apart throughout the neighborhoods and we stayed in total compliance."

Stage 2 (Midway) also faced downtown Napa at the end of a field that usually serves as the carnival midway for fairs. Edwards and his team set up a system with 14 W8LCs a side with 18 WS281X subs and 6 W8LMDs for front fills.

"We had a 'drop and stop' at roughly 500'," adds Edwards. "The festival had built a 2/3 ring of restrooms and bleachers at the end of the field 50' off the main gate with vendor booths as the remaining 1/3, and that was the cutoff point."

MLA's control capabilities would obviously facilitate cutting off the sound at a specific point using the system's breakthrough technology and software, but the Delicate crew needed a different approach with the more traditional W8LC line array system.

"We rig the system as high as we can possibly get it, and then focus it down into the crowd instead of straight out," said Edwards. "A lot of people flatten the array out instead of separating the boxes, which creates a beam of energy that throws forever but they forget it's like a bullet straight up in the air that will eventually come straight down and hit somebody. So you have to point that top box where it's actually stopping so that it changes the possibility of the sound going beyond the boundaries of the property."

Wrapping up with a discussion of MLA, Edwards said, "In my opinion, Martin Audio MLA is the secret to the success of this main stage -- our ability to control what's going on with the proximity to that neighborhood. You couldn't do it without that technology. There are a lot of other people who manufacture boxes, but they aren't able to steer and focus the energy like MLA.

"In terms of the coverage and audio quality, the promoters, who are businessmen new to that world, couldn't have been any happier or more pleased. Guest FOH engineers had nothing but rave reviews. Everybody had a blast. Not a single set change went over length, there were no curfew issues, and we finished early if anything.

"We were responsible for four musical stages and one culinary stage with a system that included 16 W8LMs, 4 WS218Xs, and 4 WT2s for front fills where there was a drum-off on Sunday between Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters. There was Martin Audio all over the place and it really worked out great."