Rich Green was front of house system engineer for the festival and explained why the festival is so popular: "I have worked the last three Rippon Festivals, and while there are larger festivals in New Zealand, Rippon would have to be one of the most successful outdoor shows in the country. It consistently sells out a couple of months before the show, approximately 5,000 and is very well organized by a dedicated local committee. It used to run annually but the last few shows have been every second year and I think this formula has worked well, perhaps making it just that much more special.
"The festival offers a diverse range of music; rock, dub, drum and bass, indie, you name it. Sonically this poses its own challenges, of course, but the show flowed surprisingly well this year. The diversity of the event is definitely a big part of its charm, well, that and getting merry in the sun."
Green has just switched to using a d&b audiotechnik Q-Series system supplied by Soundpeople out of Christchurch; a move he's found entirely to his liking. "As far as the system goes, I couldn't be happier with its performance. The organizers and the punters were also pleased, as well as the bands, and incredibly, even the engineers gave the thumbs up. I don't think I have ever heard so many unsolicited positive reactions regarding audio quality."
He continues: "I think it would be fair to say that with an audience of 5,000, six Q1s per side is probably the minimum requirement for this show and it would have been nice to have had one or two more boxes at the top of the array, the flat section, to increase the sound density in the far field. But that said, the system coped very well and although it was certainly running into gain reduction it never hit limit at any time.
As far as coverage is concerned, the natural amphitheatre is quite wide so we were definitely exceeding the specified coverage of the Q1 loudspeaker and, as you would expect, the SPL was low at the outer edges, but in the context of this show I don't feel that this was particularly problematic. Essentially the audience could choose whether to be "in the thick of it" in the middle section or just relax on the hillside at the top or outer section with a few wines. For in-fills and some out-fill we used the Q7 loudspeaker."
(Jim Evans)
