Meyer Sound PANTHER Proves the Best Bet for Life is Beautiful Festival in Las Vegas

Downtown Celebration Rocks with Two Main Stages 
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In a city famous for its nightlife, this year’s Life is Beautiful festival, produced in partnership with Another Planet Entertainment, boosted Las Vegas’ reputation for big, bold, and electrifying events to new heights. Staged over three weekend nights in late September, the ninth edition of Life is Beautiful occupied no less than 18 blocks of downtown Sin City to accommodate non-stop revelry by crowds estimated at up to 150,000. The main musical attractions were at the Downtown and Bacardí stages, both equipped with Meyer Sound systems provided by Solotech. At the Downtown Stage, where headliners like Calvin Harris, Gorillaz, Jack Harlow, and Arctic Monkeys pumped up the night, the party-level sound was powered by a PANTHER large-format linear line array loudspeaker system.

“We all recognized that the close ties between Meyer Sound and Life is Beautiful presented a perfect opportunity to introduce FOH engineers, touring production people, and music fans to the new PANTHER system,” says Jim Yakabuski, veteran FOH engineer (Van Halen, Journey, Gwen Stefani) who now doubles as Director of Audio Projects for Solotech US. “Again this year, Solotech’s hard working teams have collaborated with Life is Beautiful on various stages. It was a pleasure to work with our partner Meyer Sound, whose PANTHER system delivered clear, pristine and punchy sound, with very fast attack transients on instruments like kick drum and bass guitar and beautifully timed and dispersed transition to the 1100-LFC™ subs for even coverage.”

In physical mass, the PANTHER system was hardly the largest ever assembled to excite six-figure audiences, and that was an initial concern for FOH engineer Paul Valette, who mixed the set by Sylvan Esso. “When I first saw the speaker hang, I thought there was no way this would be sufficient power for the size of the stage,” he recalls. “Wow, was I ever wrong! It was also one of the smoothest, most musical PAs I’ve ever mixed on.”

The main arrays for the system comprised 16 per side PANTHER line array loudspeakers (12 with long-throw L horn and four with the wide W horn), augmented on each side by eight LYON® line array loudspeakers. Deep bass was carried by flown arrays of six per side 1100-LFC with the same numbers on the ground in an end-fire configuration. Extreme bass transitioned into subsonic impact with sixteen of Meyer Sound’s VLFC™ very low frequency control elements, with response down to 13 Hz.

Rounding out the Downtown Stage system were eight LEOPARD® compact line array loudspeakers as front fills, dual delay towers with eight LYON loudspeakers each, and six Galileo® GALAXY 816 Network Platforms for drive and optimization, all networked via the Milan AVB protocol.

“I thought the Panther rig sounded epic,” comments Wayne “Rabbit” Sargeant, FOH mixer for Calvin Harris and also known for mixing Avicii for much of his career. “It was phase coherent right up in your face. It didn’t sound 50 or 60 meters away. The vocal clarity was fantastic.”

One challenge for mixing Harris, he says, is getting “definition in the bottom, and enough of it.” But the PANTHER system delivered with low end that was “fully controlled and with headroom for days, and that had an impact on Calvin’s set. It was a monster. I really enjoyed mixing it.”

At the Bacardí Stage, the main arrays were LEO® and LYON line array loudspeakers, buttressed on the sides by systems comprising MICA line array loudspeakers along with MSL-4 and CQ-2 point source loudspeakers. Front fills also were MICA loudspeakers, with 1100-LFC elements for both flown and ground low-frequency support. Headliners at the Bacardí Stage included Shaggy, Kygo, Beach House, and Dermot Kennedy.

Meyer Sound Senior Technical Support Specialist David Vincent was tasked with the design for both systems, working in close consultation with Solotech system engineer Alex Ginchereau at the Downtown Stage and freelance SE Alex Pritchard at the Bacardí stage. Mike Bradley, Solotech’s Project Manager out of the Nashville office, and the entire Solotech team made sure all the parts fit together and functioned smoothly.

Meyer Sound’s proprietary LMBC (low-mid beam control) was implemented at both stages to assure uniform front-to-back spectral balance. At the Downtown Stage, precise tuning for speed of system deployment was enhanced by the fact that all loudspeakers in the system shared the same PC63 “phase family” as the PANTHER loudspeakers, indicating all the self-powered loudspeakers are naturally phase compatible without needing to implement any product integration settings.

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About Life is Beautiful

Life is Beautiful was born in 2013 as part of the major transformation of Downtown Las Vegas as a cultural hub and has since contributed over $350M of economic impact and cultural capital to the area. During the three-day festival, premier musical acts, experiential artists, comedians, thinkers and culinary talent flow into the urban streets of DTLV, in addition to the festival’s 170,000 attendees. What started as an event has become something more: a symbol of connection, joy and creativity. Life is Beautiful continues to be driven by its core mission to create a holistic experience which aids in positive community transformation and individual empowerment by collectivizing and inspiring through shared experiences driven by art and culture.

About Another Planet Entertainment

Established in 2003, Another Planet Entertainment (APE) is the largest independent promoter in the U.S. and has produced and promoted thousands of events with artists as diverse as Radiohead, Neil Young, Kendrick Lamar, Adele, Daft Punk, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Lizzo, Metallica, Bruno Mars, twenty one pilots, Bruce Springsteen, Mumford & Sons, Zedd, Paul McCartney, Florence + The Machine and Kanye West. Named Top Independent Promoter (U.S.) by Billboard Magazine in 2015 and 2016 and Top Independent Promoter (Worldwide) in 2017, APE is the exclusive promoter for the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, the Fox Theater in Oakland, the historic Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, The Independent and Castro Theatre in San Francisco and Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys as well as co-promoter of Oxbow RiverStage in Downtown Napa. APE also operates private events division Another Planet Event Group and an artist management arm, Another Planet Entertainment Management, with a roster that includes two-time GRAMMY-nominated artist Tycho. In addition, APE produces two award-winning festivals – Outside Lands (since 2008, ranked #4 on Billboard’s Top 50 Festivals of 2022) in San Francisco and Life Is Beautiful (since 2013) in Downtown Las Vegas.

W. Another Planet Entertainment

About Meyer Sound

Founded by John and Helen Meyer in 1979, Meyer Sound is a global leader in providing integrated solutions for sound reinforcement, spatial sound, acoustic systems, studio monitoring and high-end residential systems. Recognized as an audio technology pioneer, Meyer Sound was the first to introduce dedicated loudspeaker processors, source independent measurement, large-scale self-powered loudspeakers, and cardioid subwoofers, among other innovations. The premium professional brand maintains rigorous quality control in its design and manufacturing of sustainable solutions for concert touring and festivals, houses of worship, cinema, education, corporate offices and residential. Scientific research and innovative product development have earned more than 100 US and international patents along with numerous industry awards. Headquartered in Berkeley, California with operations globally, Meyer Sound is a company where employees are innovators and diversity, equity and inclusion are embraced in the workplace and the community.

W: meyersound.com