What a weekend for NEXO STM line array in Seoul – a
record-breaking event for SWDF, now one of the biggest outdoor music festivals
in Asia, and the tenth show anniversary for sound rental provider Way Audio,
which has built such a strong relationship between NEXO and this spectacular
EDM party.
The Seoul
World DJ Festival (SWDF), which kicks off Korea’s music event calendar, has
been growing in strength every year, since its first edition in 2007.
Today, it attracts some of the best EDM DJs in the world, and transforms the
town of Chuncheon and its Song-Am Sports Complex. This year’s bill
included Blasterjaxx, Tomswon, Julian Jordan and KSHMR.
In 2016,
an important liaison was made with influential EDM producers Q Dance from
Holland (Qlimax, Defqon, Tomorrowland) who collaborated on this year’s
festival. Q Dance brought its hallmarks of dynamic staging, pyro and
impressive sound/lighting to the stadium, as well as two well-known DJs from
its stable, Atmozfear and Noisecontroller.
Leading
sound rental company Way Audio handles the PA requirement for the World DJ
Festival, the only production supplier to keep its contract for the full ten
years As the event has grown, so too have the PA designs. Way
Audio was an early pioneer of NEXO’s STM modular line array systems, which have
proved ideal for the EDM material and stadium location of the SWDF.
This
year, Way Audio implemented one of the largest STM system configurations, using
arrays of 21x STM M46 main plus B112 bass cabinets, delivering high SPL
coverage over the wide audience area. 21x STM S118 subs, groundstacked on
each side, were boosted by another 12x CD18 subs in front of the centre stage,
to provide “a goose bumps performance”, according to James Lee of A-Works, the
NEXO distributor and support centre in Korea.
The
on-stage monitoring is all important for the star DJs at the SWDF, and the
system of choice is groundstacks of STM, each built with 3x STM M28 compact
modules on top of a S118 sub. Often informally referred to as “Texas
headphones”, these groundstacks are supplemented by NEXO PS15s. The
entire PA system is powered by NEXO’s Universal Amp Racks (11x NUARs), each
containing two NXAMP4x4 amplifiers.
For James
Lee, the best victory of the show was in the verdict of the Q Dance team,
currently on a world tour and using NEXO STM for the first time. “The Q Dance
team usually get the system they ask for on their rider, and were a bit
suspicious when they saw NEXO STM for the first time. But the show was
such a success, they gave it the thumbs-up!”. The crowd
certainly approved: according to James, hardly anyone left the soundfield for 3
hours, not even for a toilet-break!”
