MONTREAL, QUEBEC —The first Festival International de Jazz de Montréal was held at Man and His World (the former Expo ’67 World Fair site) and attracted 12,000 spectators. Twenty-seven years later, the Montreal Jazz Festival had some 30 countries represented with 500 concerts, attracting over two million attendees, many which travel to Montreal every year to join in the festivities. Celebrity guests included Bob Dylan, Harry Connick, Jr. and Keith Jarrett among others.
Hugo Tardif has served as technical director responsible for the outdoor shows at the jazz festival, and joins Solotech as one of the two sound department’s technical coordinators, along with Daniel Rioux. Solotech provided production for the three-mega stages, along with NEXO products provided by Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc.
NEXO gear included a NEXO GEO T rig (10 x T4805 and 1 x T2815 with 6 x CD18 per side) for the main stage with Alpha EF side fills on the stage. A NEXO GEO D rig (6 x D10 and 2 x GEO Sub per side) with PS15 fills was used on a second stage, and a GEO S system (7 x S805 and 1 x S830 with 4 x CD12s per side) with PS8 fills was provided for the third stage.
“Having a very good understanding of the festival’s needs, and after dealing with the architectural difficulties of a sound system bouncing against the downtown area buildings, the choice for a good line array system was clear,” Tardif says.
“Many different brands of line arrays were used in the past but were difficult to
tune because the location is not a real open field situation,” Tardif says. “The NEXO cabinets were much more manageable in this particular situation.”
After discussing the matter with Yamaha’s Michel Trepanier, the opportunity was born. “When we installed the small, light weight GEO D and T rigs, everybody was amazed with the power and clarity of the system. To be able to provide such a clear and crisp sounding system was a relief and a blessing for us,” Tardif adds. “The lightweight aspect of the GEO T system was also very helpful for the festival’s team, as this year two giant video screens were added, which limited the weight capacity of the mobile stage.”
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For information, please visit www.solotech.qc.ca or www.yamahaca.com.
