"Most of the crowd are in their twenties," said Evert De Munnik. "And about all of them are metal heads." Not what you were expecting? No, but then Oppikoppi is not your run of the mill festival.
Oppikoppi, staged a few miles outside Northam close by the border with Botswana, is after 20 years, part of the South African music establishment. De Munnik works for Mango Groove, a big band full of voices, brass and laughter.
"Despite six separate stages, twenty thousand out of a total twenty five thousand attending Oppikoppi were at the Mango set that was successful with the help of the system." De Munnik is the band's sound engineer and he has good reason to draw attention to the PA system's virtues.
Supplied by Blue Array Productions based two hours away in Pretoria, company owner Kobus van Rensburg has looked after most of the audio needs of this event almost since inception, "Oppikoppi has been running for 20 years come the 2014 event, Blue Array Productions started ten years ago with the acoustic stage and we have grown to take the others. The stages are relatively close and although physically delineated by perimeters of beer and food tents that doesn't stop sound leakage, so properly designed and implemented rigs for each stage are essential. That's where the constant directivity of the d&b equipment has given us commercial advantage. In such an environment with multiple stages, we can maximise systems to all the listeners' advantage. That's what makes this work for us."
The stages use a variety of d&b systems, "We provide PA for five of the six stages; four are complete d&b stages, including monitors. We have been investing steadily in d&b since 2007 and now have a substantial inventory.
"The main stage uses J-Series, 14J-TOPs a side with flown J-SUBs and a substantial B2-SUB array on the ground. Delays are all Q-Series. The second stage is V-Series, our latest investment, also with ground stacked B2-SUBs, this time in CSA mode. Three is a Q rig, that's the system we first bought into and find it very good for medium size outdoor events and indoor corporate stuff. Here we used Q1 with Q7 fills and Q-SUBs.
"The acoustic stage uses Q as well, just a stereo pair of flown Q10 at side of stage; this is a wide spacious performance area with presentations of ballet, acoustic musicians and comedy acts. Power is not the priority, its coverage."
A big investment over six years. "We have been well supported by Stage Audio Works the d&b Distributor for South Africa as we have gone through this expansion. That support is a big part of why we have been able to invest and grow our d&b inventory."
(Jim Evans)
