The Montréal International Jazz Festival roared back to life in 2022, reinforcing its distinction as the largest jazz festival in the world. With 350 concerts scheduled over 10 days — two-thirds of them free — the festival once again drew audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands to downtown Montréal, where AVL supplier Solotech had equipped eight indoor and outdoor stages — including the Scène TD main stage — with Meyer Sound reinforcement systems.
The exotic blend of performances by global acts earned rave press reviews, in particular for the closing act, The Roots, at Scène TD.
“The Roots demonstrated why they continue to be known as one of the best live acts on the planet,” wrote the Montréal Gazette, also noting that “the tens upon tens of thousands that swarmed an absurdly packed Place des Festivals…were in for a heckuva show.” Canadian Beats concurred, noting “The Roots delivered a true masterclass in hip-hop, funk, soul, and jazz, a cluster of genres perfect to close the festival.”
The resounding success of audio at this year’s Montréal International Jazz Festival can be credited to the work of Festival Technical Coordinator Dan Meier and his team from L’Equipe Spectra. Meyer Sound and Solotech worked closely with Meier and his team to develop and deploy the sonic experiences at the festival.
The enthusiastic response came as no surprise to Director of R&D and Technological Solutions David Brazeau, who was responsible for overall supervision of AVL systems on behalf of Solotech. “We’ve heard only great reviews on the performances from people who were there and from the media. There was no particular mention of the sound, but then the whole idea is to make the reinforcement transparent, so it’s not noticed. When the sound is perfect you don’t hear anything about it!”
The Scène TD stage system comprised main front arrays of nine per side LEO linear line array loudspeakers, with focused low end from end-fire arrays of six per side 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements. Front fills were MICA line array loudspeakers, with MSL-4 loudspeakers as out fills. First delay was two arrays of six MICA loudspeakers augmented by six 900-LFC elements in cardioid configuration, with pairs of CAL 64 and CAL 32 beam-steering column array loudspeakers supplying highly directional sound for the second and third delays. The VIP section was covered by four M1D line array loudspeakers.
