CHICAGO— The 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival was staged on July 28 at Toyota Park in Chicago, Ill. Rental company Sound Image provided the live sound system for the festival, using JBL Professional VERTEC line arrays.
For the festival, Sound Image fielded a total audio crew of 16. Sound Image engineer Kurt Springer led a pre-event system setup team, and system engineers Dave Gautrey, Gary Sanguinet and Son Nakamura were on hand to manage the multi-array VERTEC rig and assist the artists’ soundmixers with system familiarization.
The Sound Image system included a total of 76 JBL VERTEC VT4889 full-size line array elements supported by 32 VT4880 arrayable subwoofers. In addition to the main left and right and outfill VERTEC arrays, a pair of VT4889 delay arrays was installed at the rear of the audience area in Toyota Park. Crown I-Tech 8000 power amplifiers powered the VERTEC system; Harman HiQnet System Architect software provided the audio team with the remote control and monitoring platform.
“This was a once-in-a-lifetime musical experience,” observed Dave Shadoan, President of Sound Image. “The amount of musical talent that was pulled together in one place, on one stage, for 11 hours of live music, had to be experienced to be believed. On events like this, JBL’s VERTEC system really proves its industry-leading position, as both VERTEC’s high output capabilities and pristine audio quality are required to properly present a concert experience like this in a stadium environment.”
First staged in 2004, the Crossroads Guitar Festival was created by legendary artist Eric Clapton to bring together the world’s most accomplished musicians of all genres. In addition to Clapton, featured artists at the all-day show included Jeff Beck, Sheryl Crow, Robert Cray, Jimmie Vaughn, BB King, Albert Lee, Stevie Winwood, John Mayer and many more.
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