The third Ningbo Fête de la Musiqué took place at the Ningbo Cultural Plaza in June, 2016. With varied musical styles Vue provided both the PA system and technical support for the festival, which debuted Vue’s large format al-12 Scalable Line Array loudspeaker system. This was Vue’s first public festival in China.
Fête de la Musique took place in Ningbo Cultural Plaza, which can accommodate nearly ten thousand people. Vue headquarters sent two support staff — Alex Schloesser of Global Marketing, in charge of the APAC Market for Vue and Systems Technician Josh Cruz based in VUE’s headquarters in California — to support the event.
From initial site survey, to system design and simulation, set-up and testing, the event came together without a hitch, with the sound hailed as “fantastic.†However, the event still presented the sound team with some acoustic challenges. For instance, there were a number of tall buildings with glass and concrete walls along the sides of the plaza. Vue technical support combined their live sound experience with Ease Focus simulation results to provide an optimal solution for the event.
The FOH mix position was located at a significant 200-plus foot distance from the stage, practically at the end of the audience area. The top boxes of the PA were aimed at the mix position, dropping off only a few feet past the FOH, thus avoiding the sound hitting the imminent glass structure behind and creating unwanted reflections.
Vue’s al-Class line array systems were paired with VueDrive Systems Engines for amplification and networked DSP. Each side of the main PA consisted of eight al-12 High Output Line Array cabinets hung over four al-8 Line Array cabinets used for down-fill. Additional front-fill was provided by four stacks of two al-8s arrayed on top of six hs-28 subs on their side, in front of the stage. At the two sides of the stage, four al-4 subcompact line array cabinets stacked on one hs-28 were used for side fills. A four-tall dual 21-inch hs-221 subwoofer ground stack was added both left and right for additional low-end extension.