Sacramento Production Services and Martin Audio Rock the Wine Country at Charity Fall Music Festival

	Charity Fall Music Festical in the Sonoma Valley wine country

For the last 26 years, the B.R. Cohn Winery and Olive Oil Company has held a Charity Fall Music Festival in the heart of the Sonoma Valley wine country.

Owner Bruce Cohn, who also manages the Doobie Brothers, is the guiding force behind this star-studded musical event that benefits a host of local charities. This year the bill featured the Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald and Friends, Kenny Loggins, Buddy Guy, The Turtles, Dave Mason, War, Lara Johnston, and others over a two-day period.

Sacramento Production Services (SACPS) provided audio and staging for the first time this year, largely on the recommendation of John Procaccini, production manager for the festival and Doobie Brothers' front-of-house engineer Gary Hartung. The company says Hartung had worked with Martin Audio in the past and was familiar with the W8LC line array system and knew it would work well for the festival to provide better coverage and SPLs throughout the venue.

"The event was a real success," explains SACPS' Keith Wackford. "It's the first time in 26 years that every act was on stage, on time. Kenny Loggins actually got onstage three minutes early! The crews and staff on both sides were great and we did a lot of hard work to make sure we had what we needed to pull this event off."

According the Wackford, the main stage speaker system consisted of nine Martin Audio W8LCs per side for the main hangs; six W8LCs a side for out fill; 14 ground-stacked W8LS subwoofers; two W2s for front fill; two WT3s for drum fill, 14 LE12J stage monitors; and a pair of W8Cs with S218X subs per side for side fill.

Separate consoles were brought in for the festival; a pair of Yamaha PM5Ds at front-of-house and a pair of PM5Ds for monitors. Three racks of Lab Gruppen PLM20Ks powered the system.

Crew for SACPS included Wackford at front-of-house; Dwayne Wise, system engineer; Rick Stansby, monitor engineer; and Evan Drath, assistant monitor engineer. Rick Santell (Huey Lewis) was stage manager.

Asked about reaction to the Martin Audio system, Wackford enthuses: "Everyone loved it. Fans at the festival thought this was the best sounding year ever. The Doobie Brothers' front-of-house and production manager said it was one their best years yet. At the end of the night when the trucks were loaded, John Procaccini said 'you hit the ball out of the park'."