Canadian rental company Omnison has debuted NEXO’s
STM modular line array system against the spectacular backdrop of the
International Balloon Festival at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
The
annual event is one of the five biggest festivals in Quebec, a 9-day fiesta
themed around the hot air balloon, and including diverse music, comedy and
animation programming for its 400,000 visitors.
Omnison
has a long history with NEXO products, with stock inventory of GEO T and GEO D Series
systems, and over 60 cabinets of GEO S8. The company was an early adopter
of the new STM Series line array in 2014, but has lately made a substantial
investment in the system, supplied by Yamaha Corporation of America, adding STM
mains, bass and sub modules, as well as additional RS subs, GEO S12 cabinets
and many NXAMP 4×4 amplifiers.
The
Montgolfieres Festival is held at an ex-military airfield near Montreal, and
the first stage of the project involved Pierre DuBerger, Omnison system
engineer, validating a system design on NEXO’s NS-1 proprietary modelling
software with NEXO’s Engineering Support Team.
The STM
modular line array was rigged for the main Loto-Quebec stage, with 18x sets of
STM M46 main + B112 bass modules per side. 9x STM subs were flown per
side, with an additional 24x RS18 subs groundstacked. All the RS18 subs
were configured in cardioid mode to reduce low-frequency levels on stage.
To
provide even coverage over the wide listening area, 2x outfill hands of 3x B112
bass plus 6x M28 ‘omni’ modules were flown each side, with the addition of 4x
GEO S12 cabinets across the stage for front fills.
On stage,
two groundstacks of STM (each with 1x M46, 1x B112 and 1x S118)) provided a
compact but powerful side fill system on each side. 16x 45°N-12 line
monitors were on stage.
The
impressive all-NEXO system was driven by NXAMP amplifiers over a redundant
Dante network, with a Yamaha DME64 as system processor. Yamaha CL5
consoles were deployed at front-of-house and monitor positions.
Michel
Trepanier from YCA and Val Gilbert from the NEXO Engineering Support Team were
on hand for the first show, with artists Metric and Half Moon Run. “Both
mix engineers were extremely pleased with the system, applying only minor EQ to
the system for taste,” reported Gilbert.
With
40,000-strong audiences for the evening entertainment, The Montgolfieres event
was a worthy debut for the large-format STM system in Canada. Now with a
substantial inventory of modular line array and a variety of flyware options,
Omnison is looking ahead to a busy future with leading Canadian artists and
events.
