This year’s Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS) – which saw performances by Earth, Wind & Fire, Michael McDonald, Tower of Power, the Arthur Lee Band and others – has been making use of an LR18 line array system from Alcons Audio.

The annual event takes place in the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen, Colorado, which last had a house PA system installed in 2006.

"It has always been inadequate to properly cover the venue," said John Czechowicz, co-owner of Alchemy Concert Systems, the venue’s regular production company.

"It’s a unique venue, a symphonic amphitheater which was never designed to host amplified rock’n’roll type shows," he added. "For the past five or six years it has been augmented for amplified shows, but we’ve always been kind of piecemealing a system together. This year we wanted something much better."

There were no issues at all and everyone was very positive about the Alcons rig

– John Czechowicz

The PA of choice for the year’s edition of JAS was an Alcons Audio LR18 system, which comprised nine-per-side L-R hangs of LR18 compact mid-size line-array modules, with three floor-mounted BC543 very high-output cardioid subwoofers per side.

Frontfills comprised four LR7 micro line-array modules, arranged as two stacks, each two high, with two RR12 point source array modules per side for outfill.

"The immediate advantage [of the Alcons system] was that the boxes were smaller and provided more elements in each, which really helped with coverage," continued Czechowicz, who admits, “I was slightly concerned about rider-friendliness. None of the acts had heard of Alcons and touring engineers tend to like what they like, be wary of what they don’t know and quick to criticise what they don’t like! But there were no issues at all and everyone was very positive about the Alcons rig."

Founded in 1991, JAS is a not-for-profit organisation, aiming to present and preserve jazz and related forms of music through world-class events, performances and education.

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