Washington D.C. (July 2018) – The White House added a live concert on the South Lawn to its annual Fourth of July celebration this year. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based Anderson Audio deployed an Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) Adaptive sound system to reinforce the production.
The 90-minute event, which was made possible by a partnership between the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation, featured performances by artists Sara Evans, pianist Lola Astanova, “American Idol” finalists Jax and Jonny Brenns, and the U.S. Marine, Navy and Air Force Bands. The Hallmark Channel broadcast the show.
“The stage was 100 feet wide and they wanted coverage for the entire south lawn, which was 700 feet down to the fence,” Mat Edgcomb, System Tech for Anderson Audio explains. “Traditional front fills would not support the space between the main PA and the stage. We decided to use a pair of Anna modules at stage level to cover the first 40 feet and then hung left-right Anna arrays on towers set up 50 feet from the stage to cover another 100 feet to the front-of-house position. To cover the remaining 500 feet, we erected two more left-right towers behind FOH and hung Anya arrays.”
Typically sound companies would use their more powerful PA for the main PA, but in this situation, the reverse setup made more sense.
“This configuration gave the mixers more gain before feedback, which is critical on a show with over 120 inputs” added Chris Anderson, owner of Anderson Audio. “It worked extremely well given the area we needed to cover.”
The left-right Anna arrays were made up of single Anna columns of nine modules each. The Anya delay arrays were set a bit further apart and were made up of six Anya modules each. EAW Otto Adaptive subwoofers were onsite but ultimately determined to be not necessary.
“The Anna and Anya systems blended seamlessly,” adds Anderson. “We provided the performers with 16 EAW MW12 and six MW15 Microwedges for monitoring purposes and also put up an out fill system for a special VIP seating area to the right of the stage made up of NTL720 line array modules. It was extremely successful with full coverage of the entire area – a wonderful celebration for a terrific day.”
