In a Belgian city that’s famous for its breweries, the people of Leuven certainly know how to throw a party. The capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant welcomed in the new year with a free event for 10,000 people in the Oude Markt, featuring DJ sets from a stage in the centre of the square.
With the audience located on both sides, an STM sound system deployed by long-time NEXO rental partner VDB-PA was required to cover two distinct areas. System designer Lennert Van de Velde takes up the story of how the VDB team took on the challenge.
“Controlling the coverage and focussing the low frequencies were important at such an event, with strict decibel limits outside the immediate area. So, we used NEXO NS-1 to design the system and predict SPL coverage with a large audience filling the square.
“The system comprised 9 x STM M28 per side for the smaller part of the square, and 6 x STM M46 + B112 per side with two M28 down fills for the larger part. NEXO’s P12 point source speakers were used under the DJ platform as infills, where the audience was able to move from one side of the square to the other.
“To minimise left – right interference in the sub frequencies we used two cardioid sub clusters, a combination of 6 x S118 flown subwoofers and 6x S118 ground stacked per tower, all in the NEXO back-to-back configuration. Each tower provided sub-bass coverage for one side of the square, while being directed away from the other side by the cardioid setup. This way we could achieve a very smooth and consistent response across the width and depth of the audience.
“The STM system sounded really good, with plenty of headroom to ensure that everyone had a great time!”
Photography: Mathias Roelants (except the last pic showing the stage build in daylight).
