BayFest 2008 has Flex appeal

31 October 2008

USA - With over 125 live bands playing in front of up to 200,000 fans, BayFest is the major annual musical highlight in the US state of Alabama. Taking place in Mobile on the first weekend in October, this year's festival saw a Turbosound Flex Array system in use at the event for first time.

Memphis-based ProShow Systems has provided production services to BayFest for the past decade and this year supplied a large Flex Array system, for the Pepsi stage, which is traditionally where most rock bands play during the event.

"We heard the Flex boxes in Las Vegas back in June and were really impressed with the sound quality, specifically the performance of Turbosound's Polyhorn mid and the Dendritic HF," says Michael Faber of ProShow Systems.

"We put the Turbosound rig on the rock 'n' roll stage, where it belongs, and were excited to get the boxes out on a big show and really open them up."

With 24 TFA-600H flown cabinets augmented by ground-stacked Aspect TA-880L bass bins, the system provided a combination of punch and clarity for bands including Puddle of Mudd, Buckcherry, P.O.D, Three Days Grace and Better Than Ezra. With up to 20,000 fans at the stage for the duration, Flex Array's high output capabilities and coverage properties were essential.

Setting up of the system was very straightforward, as AM&S product manager Claus Frostell confirms: "Half way through the first hang, the ProShow and local crew started raving about how easy it was to fly. It was supposedly the best they've ever done."

He continues: "We did that first hang on the Thursday evening, but in the daylight of the following morning we could see that the angle wasn't quite correct. It was a good opportunity to demonstrate the ease of bringing the arrays down and readjusting the hang point. It took just 10 minutes per side.

Later, Frostell and system technician Jason Baker spent half an hour with Chris Zakoor, FOH engineer for that night's headliners Three Days Grace, to fine tune the system to his taste.

"Chris commented that, for a mid-sized line array, it sounds like a big system and that it is very responsive. He could easily hear minor changes on the console or graphic EQ, which isn't the case with many other speaker systems," says Frostell.

(Jim Evans)