
Summerfest 2019 is Hotter Than Ever Thanks to Clearwing and DiGiCo posted: 28/07/2019
A DiGiCo SD7 FOH console in action at Summerfest 2019 for Jennifer Lopez's performance at American Family Insurance Amphitheater
The Big Gig turns to DiGiCo for a fifth consecutive year as the exclusive provider of audio consoles, including the festival's inaugural deployment of 4REA4 on three of its largest stages
There's a good reason that Wisconsin's Summerfest is colloquially known as the Big Gig. For 11 days in late June and early July each year, somewhere between 700,000 and a million people flock to Milwaukee's Lake Michigan shoreline to watch more than 800 top artists and bands perform on a dozen stages, earning Summerfest its double-decade-running Guinness World Record title as The World's Largest Music Festival.
As one can imagine, the technical challenges behind providing sound reinforcement for such a massive event are numerous, but locally based Clearwing Productions-Summerfest's longtime primary production partner-keeps the festival roaring like a well-tuned Harley-Davidson engine. According to Clearwing Audio Operations and Logistics Manager Jeff Schauer, a big part of that success has been the company's now-five-year standardization on DiGiCo FOH and monitor mixing consoles for all of Henry W. Maier Festival Park's stages, including this year's recent adoption of new 4REA4 systems for three of those venues.
We had a DiGiCo 4REA4 set up at the BMO Harris Pavilion, U.S. Cellular Connection Stage, and Harley-Davison Roadhouse, and they were the essential system matrix and production hub at each site, Schauer describes. Although we supply rider-friendly DiGiCo desks for every stage except the American Family Insurance Amphitheater, where touring artists have to carry in all of their own production elements, we regularly have bands and engineers show up with the desks that they're used to touring with, many of which are also DiGiCo. With the new 4REA4, we were able to not only take MADI from our desks, but also allow guests with their own consoles to bring in various platforms-whether it be Dante, MADI, analog, or AES, and at any clock rate-and we could quickly and seamlessly integrate them into the PA. House music was also run through the 4REA4s, so any file changes could be done on the house desk without any interruptions in the PA system.
A DiGiCo SD12 FOH console, positioned behind an SD9, at Summerfest's Uline Warehouse Stage ready and waiting for a Walk The Moon concert
Each of the three 4REA4 systems was paired with DiGiCo's 32-bit Mic Pre-Amps and ACONTROL8 remote control fader panels, providing tactile control for the system engineers during changeovers. These would control all of the drive inputs from the bands, as well as all of the mains, front-fills and delays, which, depending on the stage, could be multiple delays with various delay times.
A DiGiCo SD5 monitor desk at American Family Insurance Amphitheater during Summerfest 2019's opening night headlining gig by Thomas Rhett
With no less than 17 DiGiCo mixing consoles-a combination of SD12, SD10, SD9, SD8, SD5 and S21-supplied by Clearwing for nearly all of Summerfest's stages, Schauer notes that he values DiGiCo's exemplary support as much as he appreciates the quality and reliability of the products.
DiGiCo and its US distributor, Group One Limited, are big proponents of education and held a pre-festival training at the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard for all of the union operators for the stages, which was fantastic, he says. It was perfect for quickly bringing some of the younger engineers better up to speed on the functionality of the desks, while also providing a nice refresher for the ones who have been using them a while, but maybe not as regularly, as is life for a union operator. There was also an SD10 set up in the Clearwing hospitality area for the run of the festival for visiting engineers to build or modify files, or to demo the attached KLANG system with the playback tracks provided, which was very helpful.
Although the sounds of Summerfest are ultimately heard through Clearwing's park-wide deployment of large L-Acoustics and JBL loudspeaker systems, the quality of the audio experience is just as dependent on having the right engineer and mixing console. The SD-Range are fantastic sounding desks, overwhelmingly accepted by artists, and the support we receive from DiGiCo is nothing short of amazing, Schauer adds. As widely as they are being used at festivals around the world, it is much more commonplace for engineers to have a file for one if they're not carrying their own production, which greatly simplifies things for a huge production like this. It's reasons like these that we continue to turn to DiGiCo year after year as our exclusive console partner for Summerfest. It's been an incredible relationship and it just keeps getting better.
And Summerfest Production Manager Steve Vallee agrees, succinctly praising DiGiCo's track record: It all boils down to consistency and results, and we get that with DiGiCo every time, he says, adding, It's all about results.
About DiGiCo
DiGiCo is a UK-based manufacturer of some of the world's most popular, successful and ground-breaking digital mixing consoles for the live, theatre, broadcast and post production industries and is exclusively distributed in the US by Group One Ltd. of Farmingdale, New York.
Most recent headlines
13/03/2025
WASHINGTON FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the agency has launched a massive, new deregulatory initiative that could potentially subject virtually all ...
13/03/2025
SUNNYVALE, Calif. SDVI has announced that it has integrated its Rally media supply chain management platform with the Spectra Vail multi-cloud data management s...
13/03/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has announced that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted a waiver of its local ownership rules to permit Gray Media to acqu...
13/03/2025
TV Tech: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2025 NAB Show?...
13/03/2025
Watch Student Naomi Soleils Folk Pop Performance on The Voice The songwriting major sang Stars by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals during the blind auditions.
...
13/03/2025
Bundle up - GeForce NOW is bringing a flurry of Blizzard titles to its ever-expanding library.
Prepare to weather epic gameplay in the cloud, tackling the genr...
13/03/2025
AI is leveling up the world's most beloved games, as the latest advancements...
13/03/2025
PC game modding is massive, with over 5 billion mods downloaded annually. Mods p...
12/03/2025
O Spotify acaba de lan ar o relat rio Loud & Clear deste ano, uma vis o transpar...
12/03/2025
Spotify acaba de presentar el informe Loud & Clear de este a o, una mirada trans...
12/03/2025
Ramadan, a period of profound spiritual significance for Muslims worldwide, is a time for fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. Enrich your experience thi...
12/03/2025
Spotify has just unveiled this year's Loud & Clear report, a transparent loo...
12/03/2025
More than 70% of FAST programming has been produced since 2010, according to new Gracenote report
NEW YORK March 12, 2025 Gracenote, the content data busin...
12/03/2025
GEONA, Nev. Independent digital and linear advertising rep firm Viamedia will adopt cloud-based ShowSeeker Pilot as its primary ad campaign and order management...
12/03/2025
BRUSSELS Mediagenix has announced that Wael Yasin has joined the company as sales director Central Europe....
12/03/2025
LONDON A new study highlights opportunities for shoppable TV and the massive impact online consumer spending is having on the economy, with Omdia predicting tha...
12/03/2025
CUPERTINO, Calif. Interra Systems has announced that Comcast Technology Solutions has integrated recent updates to BATON Version 9 into its operations....
12/03/2025
Nevion announces new 400G addition to its eMerge SDN media fabric offering
Brie Clayton March 12, 2025
0 Comments
High-capacity switch enhances existi...
12/03/2025
DaVinci Resolve Studio Delivers Cinematic Sound for Adam Bol
Brie Clayton March 12, 2025
0 Comments
Feature film relies on DaVinci Resolve Studio for ...
12/03/2025
SVT Leverages Ateliere Live to Pioneer 100% Software-Defined Production at Rally...
12/03/2025
Berklee Awards Fenway Neighborhood Improvement Grant to Four Organizations A total of $17,000 will be distributed among the Boston-based nonprofits.
By
Madd...
12/03/2025
TVBEuropes Jenny Priestley sits down with new SMPTE president Richard Welsh to discuss his aims for the organisation going forward, its efforts to attract a you...
12/03/2025
The new process has significantly enhanced operational efficiencies, with automation freeing up creators to concentrate on higher value tasks
By Matthew Corrig...
12/03/2025
Jellyfish Pictures, which has offices in London and Sheffield, said it has been battling hard in the face of strong headwinds over the last 12 months
By Jenny ...
12/03/2025
Visit Booth #W2213 to Experience the Latest in AI-Driven Content Discovery and Workflow Automation
Bitcentral, a leader in media workflow solutions, is set to ...
12/03/2025
CHICAGO Jeff Lilly has been named WGN-TV director of technology effective March 17, 2025, according to Ric Harris, WGN-TV vice president and general manager....
12/03/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. A new study from LG Ad Solutions indicates that consumers want more features that would allow them to shop for products on the connected T...
12/03/2025
BOTHELL, Wash. The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and the Video Services Forum (VSF) will once again present...
12/03/2025
PHILADELPHIA Comcast announced that it has upgraded Xfinity Internet speeds for more than 20 million customers for no additional cost....
12/03/2025
Create with Maxon: Cinema 4D Fundamentals Workshop - March 12-14
Brie Clayton March 11, 2025
0 Comments
Makin' Waffles with Elly Wade
During Marc...
12/03/2025
Ottawa, Canada - March 12, 2025 - Ross Video is pleased to announce the appointment of Aaron Tunnell as Business Development Director, Cloud Solutions, reinforc...
12/03/2025
12 Mar 2025
VEON to release 4Q 2024 trading update on 20 March 2025 Dubai, 12 March 2025 - VEON Ltd. (NASDAQ: VEON), a global digital operator, today confirms ...
12/03/2025
Getting set for the Winter Olympics: Inside SVT's ongoing software-based pro...
12/03/2025
THE PLAYERS Championship 2025: AI Commentary, Shared-Reality Viewing at COSM, La...
12/03/2025
Seamless SMPTE 2110: A Discussion on Making the Move to IP Less Painful Leaders from Netflix, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, LinkedI, and Megapixel address ...
12/03/2025
Opening Doors of Perception: Meta's Ajit Ninan on Rethinking AR/MR Perceptua...
12/03/2025
With the 2025 Formula 1 season set to begin in Melbourne on March 16, Sky Sports is gearing up to deliver its most comprehensive F1 coverage yet. Following a th...
12/03/2025
Unicanal and Trece TV revolutionize Digital TV in Paraguay with Rohde & Schwarz ...
12/03/2025
Honoring Service, Celebrating Sport: Rohde & Schwarz UK Sponsors NavyFit Rugby D...
12/03/2025
New HVS-Q12 Represents a Quantum Leap in Switcher Design...
12/03/2025
Telespazio and ABS Expand Partnership to Deliver Tailored C-Band Connectivity So...
12/03/2025
ABC conducts independent audits across the TAG programs. In the March 2025 TAG s...
12/03/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Moonlight: ESA program to create a satellite con...
12/03/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
In 2025, Thales ranks among the top 0.01% of the...
12/03/2025
Consumer show back following hugely successful first series
10 March 2025 Following a hugely successful first series, The Complaints Bureau returns to RT ...
11/03/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
11/03/2025
Salsa is making a comeback, captivating new listeners with its infectious energy...
11/03/2025
For many people, music can serve as a reflection of their roots and upbringing. ...
11/03/2025
The solution delivers reliable, scalable and secure connectivity for critical pu...
11/03/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced that Weigel Broadcasting has deployed Harmonics VOS Media Software, which offers playout-to-delivery capabilities, inclu...