In its inaugural year, the Life is Beautiful festival featured a diverse line-up of musical acts from a variety of genres including The Killers, Kings of Leon, Beck, Vampire Weekend, Imagine Dragons, Janelle Monae, Passion Pit, Jurassic 5, Danny Brown, Childish Gambino Pretty Lights, STS9 and Empire of the Sun, to name a few.
"PWS was happy to be part of this new festival, and while we have extensive experience in providing frequency coordination for events of this size and scope, it was not without its challenges," says Jim Van Winkle, general manager, PWS. "There was quite a bit to consider logistically, because the festival was situated over a large area right in the middle of downtown Las Vegas near Fremont Street."
Jim Van Winkle and John Garrido from PWS arrived two days prior to the event in order to conduct a frequency sweep to identify all frequencies in the area. A total of four PWS staff members were onsite during the two-day celebration to monitor and ensure that any potential issues were kept to a minimum. With six stages and more than 520 frequencies, PWS utilized its proprietary Intermodulation Analysis Software (IAS) and spectrum analyzers to determine occupied bandwidth and track interference sources, ensuring that both the musical acts and attending media were on a safe frequency, once located.
PWS worked closely with Another Planet, the production company for the festival, and all the stage managers, before and during the event to have as much information as possible about the wireless requirements needed by all of the performers and media. PWS also established and coordinated frequencies for the PA companies, including VER Audio and Solotech, to use for the entire weekend.
"Whenever working on an event of this magnitude, there is always a media presence; making sure that they are on the correct frequency is crucial, so that there is no interference with the musical acts," adds Van Winkle. "You always have to expect last minute changes to arise but our crew works really hard to address these as they come up. The final result turned out great and we look forward to being part of the festival next year."
In addition to managing frequency coordination, PWS' Domed Helicals as well as its original Helical Antennas, were onsite for the festival. The PWS Domed Helical Antenna boasts the highly successful circular polarization configuration, pioneered by the company's original Helical, but with the unit sealed within a unique new compact "domed" design.
In addition to the GX-8 Combiners that are already a part of several of the bands' rigs, PWS also had extra GX-8 Combiners on-hand in case the need arose. One of the musical acts was so impressed with the GX-8 that the group decided to use the product for its next show. PWS' GX series of combiners, the GX-4 and GX-8, offer selectable high and low output settings as well as above unity gain on output. Helpful for very anemic transmitters, the combiners in the GX series are considered RF limiters because of their proprietary Automatic Level Control (ALC) circuitry.
(Jim Evans)
