Celebrating its 10 year anniversary, the Zeltspektakel Winterbach festival returned between July 18 – 25, complete with a large TW AUDiO sound reinforcement system to help organizer Kulturinitiative Rock e.V. mark the occasion. Taking place in big top style circus tent for an audience of 4,000, the festival opened with Amy MacDonald performing on a stage draped with dark red velvet curtains and imposing vintage lamps that recreated the ambience of a 19th century boudoir.
She was one of a number of stars who performed over the eight day event, including Golden Earring, who performed on the Wednesday night with remarkable vigour and a touch of nostalgia, playing hits like “Radar Love”, “Twilight Zone” and “45 Miles”. Then Kenny Wayne Shepherd took to the stage. At the tender age of seven, Kenny picked up the guitar and taught himself how to play it. Today he’s one of the best players in blues rock, as he proved in a wonderful set that captured the imagination of his fans.
An absolute highlight was Anastacia, who performed on the third day, persuading the crowd to get up and dance with her unforgettable voice. Similarly, Dieter Thomas Kuhn was on a “Mission of Love” on the Friday night. On Saturday, the stage heaved to the sound of German hip hop pioneers Beginner, while Sunday’s Classic Rock night featured Magnum, Uriah Heep and The Hooters. Finally, comedians Martina Schwarzmann and Willy Astor took to the stage while Konstantin Wecker crowned the last day of the festival with his oratorical tenor, as powerful as ever.
With dimensions of 75 x 45 meters, the audio environment within the tent was challenging, in particular as the musical program was very varied, taking in hip hop, pop, rock and sometimes even speech alone. Berthold Blocher of PML Veranstaltungstechnik explained: “We have worked on this event for numerous years so we were well prepared and knew what we were up against, even with the larger tent that they had this year. Careful planning and deployment of the system, including taking measurements with Smaart software, helped us to achieve even and smooth coverage of the entire area.”
The main PA consisted of 18 flown VERA36, supported by eight VERA20 as out-fills. Six T20 were used for front-fills. A delay line of four T24N was positioned immediately behind the FOH area, while eight S33 and 6 BSX subwoofers in cardioid mode were deployed in front of the stage for low end extension. Twelve C15 enclosures were used on stage for monitoring and a PA-SYS-ONE did the stage-fill.
“All the sound engineers that had to work with the system were absolutely happy with the performance of the PA”, adds Blocher. “The sound was clear and balanced across the entire frequency range, leaving plenty of headroom.”
Achim Koehler, sound engineer for The Hooters, was delighted: “Circus tents in general are always tricky when it comes to sound. However, this system was perfectly measured, had great low mids, superb intelligibility and a fantastic bass sound. It’s a great PA.”
