It all began, in 1985, in of all places Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and over time has developed into one of the longest running (and highly successful) festival franchises in history. Following the first event, the Rock in Rio concept has spread to Lisbon, Portugal, Madrid, Spain and in 2015, to Las Vegas.
To date, millions of people have attended Rock in Rio shows; in fact, the first year alone featured a 10-day run attracting 1.4-million concertgoers. And performers at various Rock in Rio shows have included Queen, AC/DC, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Sting, Neil Young, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Stevie Wonder, Metallica and hundreds more.
Debut in the USA
And now, Rock in Rio has wrapped up a hugely successful, two-weekend debut in the states (May 8-9; May 15-16), which attracted more than 172,000 attendees. Rock in Rio USA was arranged with a rock-centric first weekend headlined by hard-hitting acts such as No Doubt, Metallica, Steve Vai, Deftones, Maná and Linkin Park, followed a week later by a pop-oriented lineup including Taylor Swift, Jessie J, Bruno Mars, Joss Stone, Ed Sheeran, John Legend and more. In fact a lot more, as in addition to two huge stages (the JBL VTX-powered Main Stage and the also-gargantuan Sunset/Evolution Stage, with its massive Martin Audio MLA rig), there were numerous smaller stages scattered throughout the 40-acre MGM Resorts Festival Grounds site bordering Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Blvd, along the north end of the city’s world-famous “strip.”
Rock in Rio’s management are hardly newcomers at the festival game, and came well equipped, with initial building and site prep beginning back in February and wrapping up right on time, days before sound checks. Even details like keeping dust and heat down were solved with 532,800 square feet of Act Global’s Xtreme Lawn artificial turf laid underfoot.
However, a major key to the success of the USA outing came from veteran stagemeisters Brown United, who handled the construction and setup for all staging and elements within the “City of Rock.” The latter was an entire village, with multiple music stages, support services and “Rock Streets” — shops, bars, restaurants, clubs, kiosks that more closely resembled Disneyland’s Main Street USA than the typical festival assemblage of food booths, tents and trailers. (See article, page 50.) Everything was 100-percent first-class, including the 80,000-square foot VIP pavilion for well-heeled rock fans and high rollers. And we have to mention the onsite wedding chapel — this is Las Vegas, after all.
High-End Audio
That commitment to top-flight production was equally apparent on the audio side. As for all Rock in Rio festivals, Gabisom Audio Equipment of São Paulo, Brazil provided the sound reinforcement system for Rock in Rio USA, with Gabisom’s chief engineer Peter Racy onsite to ensure every detail was perfectly in place.
For the Main Stage, Gabisom provided an appropriately large main P.A. system arranged in the typical Rock in Rio format, which Gabisom refers to as a “side-by-side” configuration — four hangs, each containing three columns of loudspeakers. The columns closest to the stage (which Gabisom calls the “Band” columns) received a full band mix, minus vocals or any other element of the mixing engineer’s choice. The middle columns were comprised of flown subwoofers, whose feed was derived from the Band mix, creating a 4-way flown system. The outermost columns, known as the “Vocal” columns, received a vocal mix, along with any other elements that the mixing engineer chose.
“In this way, we guaranteed that each independent system [Band or Vocal] would not be fighting one another for headroom, allowing full, clean power with no limiting, clipping or acoustical distortion,” said Racy. “This newly found headroom was present right at the mixing console’s summing amps and output buses, in the system processors and power amps, as well as the speaker components. The result was clean, powerful sound.”
The P.A. system featured a total of 128 JBL VTX V25 line array elements, 32 VTX S28 flown subwoofers and 24 VTX G28 ground-stacked subwoofers. A total of 124 Crown I-Tech 12000HD amplifiers powered the system, which was networked via JBL HiQnet Performance Manager. A sturdy-looking (ready for anything) series of six moderne-appearing towers stood above the crowd, offering an ideal support for hanging six VTX V25 array boxes on each for delay purposes, ensuring that everyone had experience great sound — even in the back row.
As is typical for outdoor concerts in Las Vegas, the climate posed a challenge from a technical perspective. “With relative humidity as low as 8 percent and gusty winds lifting dust into the air, anything over 8 kHz was lost at around 50 meters, making the system sound dull and muffled,” Racy noted. “We got around this by tuning various parameters within Performance Manager, including band-pass gain, subtractive EQ on the low-mids and additive EQ on the highs. This is quite unusual for the VTX system, on which we normally make a few changes, if any.”
However, once Gabisom dialed in the atmospheric compensation, Racy said the system performed exceptionally. “Guest mixing engineers were all very happy with their results, and all had favorable comments on the system,” he added. “The Performance Manager software was a huge asset for both tuning and monitoring the entire system, giving us the confidence that the system was healthy at all times.”
“The VTX V25 system has been Gabisom’s system of choice for large outdoor festivals and high-power rock and electronic dance music concerts, due to its high power capability and superb audio quality,” Racy concluded. “It does the job exceedingly well in an effortless manner.”
The Other Side
Rock in Rio USA had no shortage of great artists, with a major share of the music coming from the Sunset (Mercedes-Benz Evolution) stage, equipped with a Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker system provided by Gabisom Audio. The system itself was supplied by Las Vegas’ own 3G Productions who also assisted with setup, stage gear and production for the event.
An eclectic lineup on the Sunset stage for both the Rock and Pop weekends included Foster the People, Gary Clark Jr., Sepultura featuring Steve Vai, Deftones, Coheed and Cambria, Jessie J., Charli XCX, Joss Stone, Magic!, Tove Lo, James Bay, Mikky Ekko and others.
The MLA system consisted of 16 MLA enclosures with one MLD (down fill) per side along with 32 MLX subwoofers ground-stacked in front of the stage and 12 MLA Compact on top of the subs for additional front and ground fill. The rig handled the diverse lineup with ease, providing consistent coverage, clarity and smooth low-end response from front to back of the 426-foot deep audience area without any delays.
A Martin Audio engineer who specializes in MLA and worked the Rock weekend, was Chris Pyne, who reports, “We were able to cover the audience with more than enough SPL and then reduce it dramatically just beyond that for the VIP area near the Hilton. Equally, thanks to MLA technology and Display software, tuning was a breeze, taking less than 15 minutes. It sounded great. Every engineer was very complimentary, saying it was one of the easiest shows they’d done. Dwayne Baker, FOH engineer for Theophilus London told us, ‘It’s an amazing sounding rig and it was such a pleasure to mix on!’ Basically, everyone was very happy with MLA.”
Martin Audio R&D director Jason Baird was on hand to answer questions about MLA and engage with FOH engineers, Gabisom and invited guests for a special system demo held before the Pop weekend shows.
Asked about special challenges presented by Rock in Rio, Baird explains, “The way the system was used in a typical large, flat festival layout, the most problematic aspects were the low night-time temperatures and lack of humidity, which are challenges for any P.A. system. The resulting high-frequency attenuation over distance was overcome by programming the correct parameters into Display. The objective was maintaining those crispy, clear highs MLA is known for, but in very low humidity conditions, at distances of over 400 feet, and we managed to maintain excellent high frequency extension right to the end of the coverage pattern.”
In terms of the different musical requirements of the various artists, Baird says, “We didn’t have to make any changes from one act to another. James Bay’s FOH engineer Rob Sadler told us, ‘I didn’t have to touch the graphic at all, it’s a very well set-up system, and it sounded great.’”
Baird continued, adding “The front fills didn’t have a lot to do, because the MLDs [down fill cabinets] at the bottom of the arrays were doing such a great job. They were just needed at the center by the barriers. The MLX subs sounded very even throughout the coverage pattern and we matched the pattern of the sub array to the MLA system. It was pleasing to be standing 400 feet away and have the subs tugging slightly at your clothes, but not giving you a headache. Equally, up on stage, the spill from the MLA and subwoofer array was incredibly quiet, leading some at the demo to think we’d just pulled the faders down, yet only a few feet further forward it was producing thunderous lows.”
Baird was pleased with the overall outcome, a reaction that was shared by visiting audio pros and engineers at the audio demo, many whom had never experienced an MLA rig.
“The reactions from our Latin American guests were exceptionally positive,” says Baird. “It was nice to see genuine enthusiasm on the faces of people who’ve been in the audio business for years. First and foremost, they were excited because of the sound quality and how it is delivered over such great distances without using any delays. That was the thing they latched onto. If you stand by FOH, you expect it to be loud and sound good, but when you walk 200 ft. further away and it still sounds loud and good in a very consistent manner, that made them think differently about MLA and the products they’re currently using.”
See Ya Next Time!
Overall, Rock in Rio USA worked. The diverse musical lineup was well-received by the fans. The audio was top-notch throughout. Besides the Rock Streets, attractions like the giant Ferris wheel operated to capacity all weekend, as did a zip line, where 4,000 attendees enjoyed the scenic view from 64 feet, high above the Main Stage.
Additionally, Rock in Rio’s “For a Better World” social project organized a food drive with 4,000 pounds of food received (enough for more than 12,000 meals) donated to Christ Church Episcopal in Las Vegas. Everyone came out ahead.
“We’re absolutely thrilled with the experience of Rock in Rio USA,” said stated Roberta Medina, VP of Rock in Rio USA (and daughter of festival founder Robert Medina). “It was exciting seeing the audience discovering the City of Rock and enjoying all it had to offer — from talent to attractions, food and the Rock Street’s unique atmosphere. We want to thank the U.S. audience for welcoming us so well to the most competitive market in the world, and we are excited for what’s to come!”
Just in case you’re wondering, the wheels are already in motion for an encore performance — so get ready for Rock in Rio USA 2017.
