Daytona, FL – After providing solid backline support for the entertainment at this year’s historic 50th Annual Daytona 500, ASR ProEvents had to produce the same concert quality audio at an intimate celebratory dinner party for 40 or 50 of the NASCAR-founding France family’s closest friends. As described by ASR’s Kenny Holton, “basically, we had to bring in touring audio results into a 30 x 50 square foot area without totally overwhelming the space.
This event was originally the Grand Marshall's Ball, which was attended by several thousand people, but the France family had recently decided to make it into a smaller and much more intimate event.”
”We had already provided backline support for the entertainment at the track’s pre-race festivities which included Chubby Checker, Michael McDonald, Brooks and Dunn, and Kool & The Gang,” Holton continues. ”But at the dinner event, we were responsible for providing concert-level audio for the featured entertainment, Michael McDonald and his band, who were onstage right in front of the family and their guests sitting at round tables throughout the room.”
To maintain the delicate balance of performance audio at dinner-level volumes, Holton and his ASR crew set up three Martin Audio W8LMD (Mini Downfill) speakers per side with a matching WMX sub. “To do it,” explains Holton, ”we had to use a Vermette lift system which is a 13-foot crank-up tower that we had fabricated for situations where we couldn’t hang anything but the client wanted the luxury and effect of a line array system without additional costs. We used one lift on each side of the stage and some Martin Audio WTUB (under balcony enclosures for front-fill. That, plus two LE2100 high-performance wedges as personal monitors for Michael McDonald.”
“It sounded really great,” Holton concludes. “Michael McDonald's engineers were very pleased with the overall result. And so were our clients, veteran event producer Cap Spence (Nightwatch Management), the overall technical producer for the Dinner who also produces high profile events like the halftime show at the Super Bowl; and John Brooks, who represents the International Speedway Corporation. It worked out really well for everyone.”
For information, please visit www.martin-audio.com.
