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QSC Meets Leghorn’s Logistical Street Challenge
Every year, the western Italian town of Livorno (Leghorn) hosts a ten-day event in the old part of the town called Effetto Venezia (The Venice Effect), during which the highly varied programme includes events spotlighting the canals and bridges.
The most recent festival opened with a huge firework spectacular in the city centre, and contained several unique features — which were to provide a stern challenge for QSC.
Entitled Porto Franco (Free Port), the show was staged in Piazza della Repubblica and was based on the 400-year history of the city, from its origins to the present day.
The enormous ‘stage’, on which actors, dancers, gymnasts and Itzaes Mexican fire-dancers alternated, was made up of a huge rectangle of freight containers, which as well as providing a uniquely spectacular setting, also emphasised the importance of the town as a sea freight port to this day.
The show itself was directed by the experienced Michelangelo Ricci, who in addition to his many production, choreographic and playright credits, is also artistic director of Leghorn’s Teatro del Porto, which he founded.
Ricci called in local rental firm Benedetti Delta Service as audio contractor for the event, who realised that the unusual location would pose problems of both an acoustic and logistic nature. The QSC ISIS WideLine rig was chosen — not only to ensure suitable coverage for crowds packing the square but because the system needed to be installed in a position that kept traffic obstruction to a minimum and enabled the arrays to be set up and taken down as rapidly as possible.
It was therefore decided to fly the hangs from a truck crane at one end of the square, with 215SB subs ground-stacked two-up alongside the truck. The system comprised 24 x WL2102 enclosures and eight subwoofers, powered by 18 x QSC power amps in a combination of PowerLight PL 224, PL 230, PL 236, PL 4 and PL 6.
Massimo Corsi, owner of Benedetti Delta Service, had personally selected the WideLine for his inventory three years ago, following a demo staged by Italian importer, Audio Link’s owner Stefano Cantadori. “I bought the system as soon as it came out,” he states. “I was convinced above all by the wide horizontal aperture — you don’t need sophisticated instruments to appreciate their 140° coverage, just walk in front of them! Another point in their favour was their light weight; they are really easy to handle and two people can put up a system quickly and easily, thanks to their integral adjustable rigging systems.”
Benedetti Delta Service currently has 12 systems in its rental fleet, and in the case of the Leghorn show, sub-rented additional enclosures.
Corsi continued, “We also use the WL2102 a lot for theatre productions, flying six a side for speech and jazz events, without the slightest feedback problem. As well as being ideal for recreating the intimacy of jazz combos in a theatre, we’ve also used the systems in opera. In both cases the sound was wonderfully natural and the artists involved were extremely satisfied with the results.”
6th March 2007
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