Martin Audio’s flagship PA systems were installed in the beautiful medieval setting of Warwick Castle, near Coventry, UK, where they brought a spectacular four-day concert series to life from July 18 to July 21, 2024.
Production company, RG Jones Sound Engineering, worked with RG Live and Merlin Entertainment to stage the mixed programme of back-to-back concerts. Opening with ‘The Music of Hans Zimmer vs John Williams’, the programme journeyed via Ministry of Sound Classical to the pop group McFly, before hosting Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds as a finale. As a bonus, joining Gallagher was legendary Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr and The Waeve, featuring Blur’s Graham Coxon and ex-Pipette Rose Elinor Dougall.
The main PA comprised 16 MLA elements on each hang, underpinned with 24 MLX subwoofers, which were reconfigurable. The subs themselves started off in a broadside cardioid array but reverted to a staggered end fire configuration, since Noel Gallagher didn’t want subs placed in front of the stage.
The site itself was very long and narrow – 260m from front to back, with a significant rise. To compensate for this and ensure system optimisation, the main hangs were complemented with eight L/R MLA Compact providing outfills, four further MLA Compact enclosures, stacked left and right, for infills, with a pair of TORUS T1230 as lipfills.
Delays were set at around 95-100m, slightly staggered and comprising two hangs of 12 Martin Audio WPL. These were boosted by another two hangs of staggered speakers, each comprising eight WPL.
This was the RG Jones’ team’s first visit to Warwick Castle. And although the venue is well accustomed to staging concerts, production levels have rarely been on this scale. RG Jones also had to be mindful that the Castle is situated right in the town centre. Therefore exacting offsite thresholds were set at 75dB(C) at one-minute Leq.
Simon Honywill, project engineer, RG Jones, said: “These levels are generally unheard of, and we worried [the performances] were going to be quiet. But in actual fact it was absolutely fine.”
He added: “This was this was due to careful tuning of the system and working some magic on the delays. We used the control technology to its full extent, particularly the ‘hard avoid’ [function] to make sure the system dropped off properly where it needed to. And that worked really well – in fact everyone was delighted.”
