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Martin Audio WPS makes debut at Access The Festival

Facing his third year of providing technical services for Access The Festival (ATF) - a three-day EDM dance party in Warwick’s Sherbourne Park, organised by DJs Will Darley and Alex Neidhardt - events specialist Sound Access turned for the first time to Martin Audio’s Wavefront Precision (WPS) for the sound reinforcement.

Sound Access had collaborated with Martin Audio partner dBS Solutions on several tours, including Burn The Floor, where they carried a WPS rig. When ATF came around, Sound Access owner Joe Baker was back in contact with Chris Bogg at dBS Solutions who cross-hired his WPS and Torus systems for the summer party. Sophia Livett from noise consultants Acoustec set site sound thresholds, which Joe Baker knew he could meet by deploying Martin Audio’s “Hard Avoid” feature in the proprietary Display software.

The event featured live performance as well as DJ playback from house, disco and techno specialists. The main Daylight Disco stage was bedecked with mirrorballs and set in a Clearspan marquee, with a stage thrust, enabling dance aficionados to experience the extravaganza from all sides. On the opening night French exponents Session Victim and Bomel starred with live sets which were played out through six WPS elements per side, ground-stacked on 2 x 4 decks, working within the limitations of the marquee structure.

With this configuration they could project the sound above the head height but were restricted by the lower-than-expected roof height, and after time alignment they were experiencing bounce back of the roof girders. “With an accumulation of reflections, we used Hard Avoid. This gave us the coverage we wanted”, says Baker. They were able to achieve level at the FOH measurement position, with most of the HF firing down into the arena stage itself.

A pair each of Torus T1230 on the outside edges of the marquee, where the audience was bleeding out, filled the gap. As for the LF, a broadside array of eight SXC118 single cardioid subs provided control and rear rejection in the 15 m x 15 m space. “This was necessary because the sound was firing out across a lot of farmers’ fields and towards a noise sensitive country house”, explaiNS Baker. “We were only talking about notching 2 dB at 50 Hz, so it was nothing drastic, but without that noise rejection from the main stage we would have had massive problems.” In the event they were able to isolate this area from the other two stages.

The smaller Groove Garden stage deployed a Torus constant curvature ground-stacked system, three T1230 elements per side, attached via scaff bars and battens to the estate trees; these were illuminated by LED uplighters. “Torus was mounted on chain blocks above head height angled down to prevent any bleed”, says Baker.

Further Martin Audio XD12 were used as biamped DJ booth fills, while a pair of CDD6s were deployed for front fill duties and a pair of WS218 subs (in stereo) were mounted onstage either side of the booth.

(Photos: Khris Cowley/Elliot Hingston/Eddy Hubble/Here & Now)

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