RCF rock solid in the German city of iron

Two of Europe’s biggest DJ/dance festivals, Splash! and Melt! have grown considerably over the 17 or so years they have been running, and today find themselves running on consecutive weekends at the Ferropolis disused colliery site at Gräfenhainichen, near Dessau.
This German venue is also known as the “City of Iron”, and with Splash! specialising in hip hop and reggae and Melt! one of the largest electronic open air music festivals in Germany, a premium sound system was required. Thus a top of the range RCF TTL line array system was specified, provided by TSE AG of Berlin, with Silvio König as technical director and Marcel Kuch as project manager.
In both cases, RCF’s TTL55-A line array system had to provide coverage for crowds of up to 25,000 people. The rental company fielded a total of 24 x TTL55-A (12 elements per side) and 18 x TTS56-A subs. These were arranged in three stacks on end in a straight line across the front oft he stage (rather than as a cardioid array).
A further eight RCF TTL33-A were also placed atop two of the TTS56-A to act as front fills while a further four RCF SUB8004-A and a pair of TTP5-A were deployed as stereo monitors for the DJs. The whole set up was driven and controlled by RDNet, RCF’s proprietary protocol.
The challenges facing the production company were due to the distance from the FOH position to the stage, which was approximately 50m. “For events of this nature the FOH technical team needs to rely on continuous, powerful and deep bass response — and this was delivered by the special set-up of the TTS56-A,“ a spokesman confirmed.