L-ACOUSTICS Wraps Up Austria's Pink Ribbon Night

Full service provider Concept Solutions supplied its L-ACOUSTICS KARA WST modular line source system for the annual Pink Ribbon Night in Austria, a major fixture in the country's social diary, attracting many international guests in support of breast cancer prevention.

The venue for Pink Ribbon Night was Ebreichsdorf's Magna Racino, a horse racetrack, casino, and multipurpose hall owned by billionaire Frank Stronach, who provided the location free of charge.

"The acoustics in the venue are difficult, so we concentrated on finding the best solution for this challenging evening," says Concept Solutions' technical director, sound, Raphael Rupprecht, who was also system and front-of-house engineer on the show. "A panoramic video projection covering more than two thirds of the room meant that two arrays of nine KARA cabinets had to be flown relatively far apart. Kara's wide horizontal angle helped enormously, especially given that a center array had to be dispensed of due to the projection screens."

Another challenge was a resonant, 72-' room behind the projection screen. Rupprecht decided to compensate for this with an array of four SB18 subs in cardioid mode flown behind the main array, thus reducing the resonant bass frequencies from behind the screen. "Stacking the bass speakers was impossible due to the gala seating in the front row," he says. Uniform SPL distribution was accomplished by using additional 8XT coaxial as front fills for the first rows, with two KIVA cabinets on stands as out fills.

Stage monitoring consisted of 115XT HiQ active monitors, and the entire system was run by three LA-RAKs each housing three LA8 amplified controllers with AES/EBU cards, running LA Network Manager remote control software.

Concept Solutions was one of the first companies to buy KARA, making a significant investment in its L-Acoustics inventory last year. The company switched from its previous brand of loudspeaker, purchasing 24 KARA, 24 KIVA, eight KILO, 12 SB18, 12 SB28, four 12XT, 16 8XT, 12 115XT HiQ, six 112P, eight 108P, four LA4, six LA8, and three LA RAK, each with three LA8 amplified controllers with AES cards, plus all rigging hardware.

"Our decision to change to L-Acoustics was the right one," says Rupprecht. "With KARA, we invested in the newest and best product on the market in this category. The KIVA system, which can produce incredible SPLs for such a small cabinet, convinced me! What struck me most from the very first listen was the unbelievable 'in your face' sound, especially with the vocal, and of course at great distances from the source.

"All artists -- including Matt Bianco, Rebekka Bakken, Ildiko Raimondi, and Vittorio Prato -- performed at this concert and were really satisfied with the sound," concludes Rupprecht. "The opera singers were particularly fascinated by the detailed reproduction of the KARA system. Guests, in-house technical crew and client alike gave us the best feedback."

It is anticipated the event will raise around 1,000,000 Euros by the end of the year to help financially disadvantaged women suffering from breast cancer.