Starting in 2000 as a showcase event for the student bands of Beijing Midi School of Music, Midi Music Festival is now among China’s largest outdoor rock music festivals and hosts acts from all over the world, including the UK and Australia. This year’s event, which took place in August and featured some of China’s most popular bands, including CMCB, Bloody Woods, and Life Awaits, was even more memorable, becoming a catalyst in restarting China’s outdoor music performances and reacquainting Chinese music fans with the clarity and power of K1.“The event was held in the open air and the situation was both unique and challenging,” says Tianjun Wu from Beijing Tianchuang Shengdian media technology company, which provided the audio for the festival with technical support from L-Acoustics Chinese distributor Rightway Audio Consultants. “We needed to ensure that all the components were weather-resistant and that they were able to produce good coverage and great acoustic performance throughout the entire area. K1 ticked all our boxes and we knew that the system would be able to cope with all our needs for this event.”
Chongli, Hebei province, about 220 kilometers from Beijing, was chosen to host the first major outdoor festival. The venue, which will host events in the 2022 Winter Olympics, is a popular ski resort covering some 40,000 square meters. It is also surrounded by mountains—great at keeping the summer heat away but challenging to the team that had to carefully design a system to deal with the uneven terrain. “To account for the difference in ground level, we had to adjust the rigging heights so that the left and right hangs were positioned on slightly different levels to reflect the natural elevation of the field floor,” shares Wu. “By doing this, we were able to achieve uniform acoustic coverage across the field, thus solving our main issue.”
The final system was configured as two L/R hangs of 10 K1 each with three Kara down to provide both nearfield and farfield coverage. Consistent bass was achieved with two hangs of six K1-SB flown behind the K1 hangs, plus ground-stacked KS28 subwoofers placed in front of the stage, eight each left and right. A dozen Kara were used for frontfill and a further six Kara speakers provided stage sidefill. Twelve X15 HiQ and one SB18 catered for stage monitoring.
The pride that Wu felt at being part of China’s first live event in months was even greater because it was his first time working on this particular event, with the team’s meticulous preparation overcoming the challenges presented by the site. “Everyone was buzzing with the anticipation of a great live show, especially after so many months of struggles and pain brought by the pandemic,” says Wu.
During the two-day musical feast, the team felt the positive results of delivering an amazing live event to thousands of music-deprived fans who came together to enjoy this year’s festival. “The feedback we received was absolutely amazing. I could see just by looking at everyone’s faces how much they were enjoying themselves. They were singing, dancing, screaming and just thoroughly exhilarated by the whole experience,” concludes Wu. “There was one fan that came to me after the show and yelled ‘THAT WAS AWESOME!’ No words could be more inspiring than that.”
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