Electro-Voice powers 20th Rock im Ring festival

Rock im Ring 2013 – the 20th edition of the festival – saw an Electro-Voice (EV) sound reinforcement system deliver audio to over 10,000 metal fans.

This year’s event – located in the town of Klobenstein am Ritten, Northern Italy – offered performances from the likes of Volbeat, Suicidal Tendencies, Heaven Shall Burn, Valient Thorr and Insanity Alert.

Bolzano-based rental company Spacelights was again given responsibility for the sound set-up, while technical support was handled by Texim – distributor for Electro-Voice and Dynacord in Italy.

“In the last five or six years in particular, more and more fans have been attending,” commented Spacelight managing director Klemens Riegler. “Rock im Ring is no longer just a local event; it attracts rock fans from all over Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. This time, we wanted to offer fans the ‘optimal system’. We examined the ground plan of the festival location and, using LAPS 2.0 simulations, worked out the best way of covering the area.”

Spacelight’s sound engineers went for a main PA system consisting of 32 XLD281 enclosures, complemented by eight XLC215 and eight Xsubs – all from Electro-Voice. Twelve CP3000S and a further dozen CP4000S amplifiers from the manufacturer provided the power.

“The rider included the stipulation that the sound pressure level should be an even 100 dB throughout the audience area,” Riegler continued, “so we knew we had our work cut out.”

The Rock im Ring stage measures 16.5 x 12.5 metres in extent (and eight metres high), with an audience area of 40 x 70 metres.

To ensure the foldback was loud enough for the artists, Riegler opted for EV PX1152M high-output monitors, underpinned by a PSD218 powered sub from Dynacord, with two EV TX1122 loudspeakers supplying drum-fill. A trio of Electro-Voice CP4000S amps delivered the requisite power.

The festival’s time schedule presented the audio team with another challenge. On the Saturday, the first band took to the stage at 11am, with the last act finishing at 2am the folowing morning. “Most of the bands only played for 30 to 40 minutes,” Riegler recalled, “so we had to cater for a large number of different line-ups. And bear in mind, the headline acts all had highly individual ideas when it came to sound. Fortunately, at the end of the day, everything went exactly as we would have wished. In fact, the customer described the sound as ‘perfect’, so what more could you ask?”

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