Clearwing Productions selects L-Acoustics Kara at Chicago amphitheatre

First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, located south of Chicago in Tinley Park, is the Midwest’s largest outdoor concert space with other 10,000 reserved shed seats and room for 18,000 more on its sloped lawn.

Owned and operated by Live Nation, the venue recently teamed with Clearwing Productions of Milwaukee to design and install a full lawn delay system, which is now comprised of 42 L-Acoustics Kara enclosures. With all acts coming through the venue with their own FOH production, Live Nation required a new delay system for its sizable lawn audience that would meet the audio quality experienced by those under the shed.

Using L-Acoustics’ Soundvision acoustical modelling software, Clearwing’s Byan Baumgardner designed a delay system featuring four arrays of Kara: two main LR arrays each comprised of 12 cabinets, and two outer arrays of nine enclosures. The arrays are powered by a total of eight LA8 amplified controllers.

Live Nation central region production director, Chris Weathers, stated that Clearwing won the project bid on its reputation for service and comprehensive Soundvision models that Baumgardner provided.

Weathers said: “Clearwing came out earlier this year, took a bunch of photos and measurements of the venue, imported those details into the computer, and then gave us several potential system designs to choose from.

“The visual models spoke a thousand words in terms of exactly what coverage pollution into the community just beyond our perimeter. It made it extremely easy to show management how an L-Acoustics system would overcome the obstacles and challenges that our previous system had failed to adequately address.

“We’re extremely happy with the Kara arrays that Clearwing installed. It’s an outrageous system – and I mean the good kind! The coverage across the entire lawn is extremely balanced and clear, and I’ve already had a number of touring engineers tell me that it’s the best-sounding delay system they’ve heard.”

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