BUDAPEST — Europe's summer festival season offers an abundance of riches, but Budapest's Sziget Festival stands out as one of its largest and most musically diverse. Held on an island in the Danube, the weeklong festival featured smashing performances by icons ranging from Róisín Murphy to Alanis Morissette, REM and Iron Maiden. With nonstop entertainment at more than 20 different venues and an audience of 385,000 fans, the organizers enlisted a total of more than 400 Meyer Sound loudspeakers to cover the festival's largest stages.
"Due to the sheer size of the festival, it's been very important for us to design systems that minimize the sound escaping to the neighboring areas," says Béla Dudás, the festival's technical director. "The Meyer Sound systems, with their tight focus, are exceptionally helpful in this respect. And of course, the sound they deliver is second to none."
Sound for the main stage was provided by a multi-national collaboration between Budapest-based Expander 2000, the festival's longtime main audio provider; London-based Capital Sound; and Slovakia's Amex Audio. The system comprised two hangs of 18 Meyer Sound MILO line array loudspeakers each, augmented by ten more MILO loudspeakers as sidefills. Two more MILO 120 loudspeakers and four CQ-1 loudspeakers covered frontfill, and 16 M3D line array loudspeakers were employed as delays. Ten 600-HP subwoofers per side covered the low end, along with an arc of 48 700-HP subwoofers in cardioid-configured stacks of three. A Galileo loudspeaker management system with three Galileo 616 units handled system drive and processing.
"We started using the M3Ds in delay positions last year, and the result was fantastic," remarks Pignon, Expander 2000's chief engineer. "The box's full-range performance delivers full-spectrum sound at 150 meters from the stage, and the low end is as powerful as it is close to FOH."
Over at the World Music stage, the main system of 16 M3D line array loudspeakers and 16 M3D-Sub directional subwoofers was complemented by numerous MSL-4, MSL-3, PSW-4, and MILO loudspeakers. David Hendon, the engineer mixing Transglobal Underground and special guest Natacha Atlas, is pleased with the M3D system. "There was a well-balanced sound across the audience, and everybody seemed to be happy with it," says Hendon.
HG Events Team covered the Jazz stage with 18 M'elodie line array loudspeakers and eight 600-HP subwoofers, augmented by UPJ-1P VariO and UPA-1P loudspeakers, while Erla Sound brought six CQ-2 loudspeakers and 700-HP subwoofers to the Open Music stage.
Multiple other stages featured Meyer Sound loudspeakers provided by RenegatX, Omega Sound, Capital Sound, and Amex Audio. Budapest-based Chromatica provided 24-hour onsite technical support for all of the companies onboard.
While the power and flexibility of the systems were key, the linearity and predictability of Meyer Sound products ensured smooth integrations of the systems from various providers, a key factor in a collaboration of this scale. "Meyer Sound's self-powered design makes life really easy," adds Capital Sound's Paul Timmins. "There's never any question that our components will work together seamlessly with gear from another rental company."
With humble beginnings as a student event in 1993, the Sziget Festival now attracts hundreds of thousands of music fans, as well as public personalities and government officials coming to Sziget as a holiday destination. The use of Meyer Sound equipment ensures the artists and the audience have a first-rate festival sound experience, no matter how large the event has become.
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