Showtime Sound Blog

Article from PLSN Staff • News • January 22, 2021

FREDERICK, MD – How long will the Covid-19 lockdown last? Like everyone, Aaron Kovelman can’t answer that one. But there’s one thing the Director of Design and Production at Showtime Sound LLC is sure of: The company he works for will continue to bring safe, socially-distant entertainment options to people for the duration, with an assist from Chauvet Professional.

More details from Chauvet Professional (www.chauvetprofessional.com):

Showtime Sound demonstrated this commitment throughout the fall and into the holiday season by staging “Showtime At The Drive-In,” a series of concerts coproduced with AutoFlex Entertainment.  Held at an improvised drive-in venue at the Frederick Fairgrounds, the series featured popular artists such as moe, Grace Potter, KIX, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Goose, Dark Star Orchestra, Mt. Joy and Blackberry Smoke.

Holding over 300 cars spread out over a wide area, the drive-in offered an experience that’s far from the ideal concert setting, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. “All of us are determined to provide people with the best possible show, regardless of the circumstances,” said Kovelman. “With everyone so spread out at this site, we had to create visuals that were very bold and looked good from any angle.”

Helping Kovelman and his team accomplish this goal was an almost exclusively CHAUVET Professional rig that was anchored by 16 Maverick MK3 Profile fixtures. The powerful 820-watt LED movers played a variety of roles in lighting the concert series, including the very important task of engaging the widely dispersed audience with dynamic and colorful crowd lighting.

Calling the Maverick units, the “workhorses” of his rig, Kovelman positioned eight of them on towers. Their 51,000 source lumen output gave him more-than-ample punch to cover the audience with light, while the 120ﹾ rotation allowed dynamic crowd sweeps.

 Kovelman drew on the CMY + CTO color-rendering capabilities to set an immersive tone throughout not only the stage, but the entire venue. Using the house tower-mounted fixtures, an array of bold primary colors, as well as softer pastels created a uniformity for attendees and performers alike.

The remaining eight Maverick MK3 Profile fixtures in the rig were arranged across the upstage deck. From this position, they were used to create gobos from behind the bands, adding depth to the relatively small stage.  Kovelman also added to the dramatic effect of the light-shows by relying on the profile to silhouette band members. For added color, 16 Rogue R2 washes were flown overhead to help wash the performance area.

“We incorporated as many high energy looks into our show as possible,” said Kovelman. “There were challenges involved in this project, not the least of which was setting up the stage and rig while maintaining social distancing, but the results spoke for themselves.  As we’ve been planning for the next round of events at the venue, fixtures like the MK3’s will certainly be a key part of it.

A split Kara system design by Showtime Sound LLC puts the sound where it needed to be in the hotel’s massive atrium for the Cirque Dreams Unwrapped stage and light show.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 2020 – The Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland near the nation’s capital likes to celebrate Christmas in a big way. Set in the property’s towering 19-story glass garden atrium with its views of the river, “Christmas on the Potomac” is the hotel’s myriad holiday installation crowned by Cirque Dreams Unwrapped, a six-week-long (Nov 15 to Dec 30), 25-minute Christmas fable combining breathtaking artistry and showmanship from around the world with spectacular costumes, classic Christmas music, a dancing fountain, laser-light show, indoor snowfall and soaring imagination.

Bringing this production sonically alive was the task of an L-Acoustics Kara system, designed and installed by Showtime Sound LLC of Frederick, Maryland. The system was split between the atrium’s lower and upper terraces: the former comprised a left-right design of one SB18 subwoofer groundstacked with five Kara enclosures per side to cover the ticketed seating areas, and a flown LCR delay system of three hangs of one SB18 over seven Kara for standing and balcony areas. Six LA12X amplified controllerspowered the delay system while three LA12X were used for the groundstacked enclosures. The system also used the L-Acoustic P1 processor for system management, routing, and time alignment, as well as for its AVB compatibility for long-distance signal transport. Audio came into the P1’s AES inputs and was sent as AVB over fiber to the amplified controllers.

Showtime Sound LLC had two distinct challenges on this project. “The atrium is huge—it’s 110 feet below the steel, about 240 feet wide, and the lower area is almost 200 feet deep,” explains Showtime Sound LLC Director of Operations and Production Brian Linnemann. “It’s also surrounded by hard, reflective surfaces, including a huge glass wall and ceiling, plus concrete balconies. We had to keep the sound directly and precisely on the seating and away from the reflective surfaces. Fortunately, the Kara enclosures can be aimed extremely precisely. We used L-Acoustics Soundvisionmodeling and prediction software and the result was perfect—great, uniform coverage with high intelligibility and plenty of impact for the music.”

The second challenge was to move the audio signal around this yawning canyon while keeping the cabling and components out of sight. The LA-RAK II amp rack for the groundstacked array was within 50 feet of the stage, but the other two racks for the flown system were located on a balcony about 120 feet vertically from the stage, necessitating substantial fiber and Cat-5 runs. That, says Linnemann, is where L-Acoustics’ compatibility with the AVB networked protocol made a huge difference.

“With AVB, through the P1, we were able to send both the audio and amplifier control over the same wire, which cut down on the amount of cabling needed,” he says. “In the past, we’ve used Dante for the audio, but that protocol can’t also carry the control data. With P1’s AVB compatibility, and Luminex GigaCore switches over the hotel’s own network infrastructure, we had a complete solution for both. It was the first time we’d deployed this arrangement here, and it worked flawlessly. By using so much less cabling, keeping it neat and invisible, which contributes to the quality of the show, was much easier.”

But in the end it all comes down to the audio fidelity, and the Kara system sounded “simply outstanding,” as Linnemann puts it. “The impact of the music was there, the dialog was clear and crisp,” he says. “The sound really completes a spectacular show like this, and this year’s audio was fantastic.”

For more details on Christmas on the Potomac, visit https://tinyurl.com/rceejf9. Showtime LLC can be found online at www.showtimesoundllc.com.