D.A.S. Audio systems were set up in the Nørresundby Sports Centre to help make Aalborg's post-race Oktoberfest-inspired celebration - complete with delicious food, free-flowing beer, boxing and a comedy act by famous Danish comedian Frank Hvam-the perfect way for the roughly 1200 participants to top off the day's challenge.
Event organisers, wanting to take this year's Xtreme Mandehørm to a whole new level, required a complete professional light and sound system for the post-race celebration. Local company Pladebiksen Sound & Light, headed by Jens Peter Hansen, was contracted to handle the systems for the event. The team was faced with the challenge of finding systems that could cover two separate halls as well as meet the different needs of each portion of the show, which ranged from an awards ceremony to male and female boxing.
The huge turnout forced organizers to divide the evening's kick-off dinner into two separate halls, and Pladebiksen engineers decided that a simple yet solid system would do the trick for the DJ playing Oktoberfest songs in Hall 2. A single LX-218 high-performance subwoofer from the D.A.S. Audio Aero 2 series was the chosen fit and was paired with two sets of three Variant 112A power line array systems positioned on opposite sides of the hall, which seated 600 and was used only for dinner.
The sound team rolled out the big guns for the larger Hall 1, which was used for the dinner as well as the night's entertainment. Four D.A.S. Audio Aero 12A loudspeakers were flown at 5m clusters in all four corners of the room, with four accompanying groundstacked LX-218 loudspeakers for front-fill. Low frequency support was handled by two additional LX-218 units which were positioned below the central boxing ring. The entire system was driven by the reliable Lab.gruppen amplifiers and XTA signal processor.
Participants, volunteers, event organizers, performers and technicians all agreed that the night was a success. The open and transparent sound quality of the D.A.S. systems, combined with their high power and solid coverage, garnered high praise for both D.A.S. and Plabebiksen, who have already locked down the contract for next year's Xtreme Mandehørm post-race event.
(Jim Evans)
