STUTTGART, Germany — The largest concerts for the 11-day BW-Bank Jazzopen Stuttgart 2009 festival moved indoors to the new Stuttgart fairgrounds this year, providing some 28,000 visitors and performers a more stable audio environment. Meyer Sound also provided sound reinforcement for the first time. “With this new venue, we opened a new page in the festival’s history, and it was important for us to also move sound to a new level,” said Jürgen Schlensog, promoter of the BW-Bank Jazzopen Stuttgart, which featured Lenny Kravitz, Grace Jones, Sonny Rollins, and a special presentation of Katie Melua with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra.
Schlensog and co-festival director Mini Schulz commissioned sound designer Bodo Bergmann and Matthias Kreiner, the festival’s technical director, to specify the sound design, with equipment support from Hamburg-based Procon Event Engineering.
The system was designed for flexibility and adaptability for different configurations serving the needs of various artists and audience sizes, which ranged from 1,600 to 8,500.
Using Meyer Sound’s MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction program with architectural renderings provided by Jens Mueller of Autostage, Bergmann created a basic system consisted of two hangs with 13 M3D and one MILO 120 line array loudspeakers with a center downfill of six MICA line array loudspeakers, augmented by six UPA-1P and UPA-2P loudspeakers each as nearfield systems.
For Katie Melua’s show with the Stuttgart Philharmonics, two additional arrays with 12 MICA line array and two UPQ-1P loudspeakers were added to serve as outfill for the 8,500 visitors seated on the outer areas of the 26,000-square-meter hall.
To meet the bass support requested for Lenny Kravitz and Joss Stone, the crew also set up 18 M3D-Sub directional subwoofers and two arrays of nine 700-HP subwoofers in a cardioid configuration.
Monitoring was provided by two arrays with six M’elodie line array loudspeakers and three 500-HP subwoofers, also configured in a cardioid formation.
On stage, Bergmann used 20 USM-1P and four MJF-212A stage monitors, with two UPQ-1P loudspeakers and two 600-HP subwoofers used as foldback for the drummers and 12 UPM-1P loudspeakers for the orchestras.
Kreiner credited the effective collaboration between Meyer Sound and Bodo Bergmann for alleviating some of the stress involved with the busy festival schedule. “We had a very flexible sound system which provided power and crystal clear audio in all the different configurations from the first time it was switched on, so I could focus on the other trades,” he noted.
In the fairground’s atrium, a smaller Meyer Sound system provided reinforcement for artists such as Sarah Kaiser Band and Fabiano Pereira. The system comprised two stacks of 10 M1D line array loudspeakers, two MM-4XP miniature loudspeakers and four M1D-Sub and two 600-HP subwoofers.
Selected shows from the Stuttgart Jazzopen have been broadcast on 3sat television network in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria since August 14.
For more information, please visit www.meyersound.com.
