TECHNICAL FOCUS: INSTALLATIONS Copyright Lighting &Sound America September 2020 issue live link: http://plasa.me/lsasep2020 Brad Paisley’s setup for Live from the Drive-In. Drive Up, Plug In, and Play By: Dan Daley Drive-in and parking-lot concerts bring The very first drive-in theatre was a hybrid: a cinema auditorium in Las a semblance of normalcy to a COVID- Cruces, New Mexico seated 700 moviegoers, but parking spots for as disrupted concert industry many as 40 automobiles within the n a m e e r F n i v e K : s r e h t o l l A ; r e y e M y r a G : o t o h p t f e l p o T Above and opposite: Outside Nissan Stadium in Nashville. 68 • September 2020 • Lighting &Sound America grounds were positioned to allow occupants to also comfortably view the films. This was in 1915, so sound was not an issue. Fast forward a century or so and sound is a huge issue for drive-ins, as this quintessentially American institu - tion, which had seen its numbers dwindle from over 4,000 in its mid- century heyday to fewer than 350 or so today, finds itself literally at center stage as a primary venue for live music in the midst of a pandemic. As clubs and music halls shut down to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the live-music sector, which had become the main moneymaker for the music business as recorded-music sales and royalties were decimated by streaming and other online distribution The parking lot at Ruoff Mortgage Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana. modes, found itself scrambling for any form of revenue it could find. Zoom and Facebook Live shows from artists’ ered. Then on May 14, country star In fact, it was that performance, at basements and front porches quickly Keith Urban showed that a drive-in the Stardust Drive-In Theatre in proliferated but simply didn’t have the theatre was just what the doctor Watertown, Tennessee that’s now con - impact that an in-person concert deliv - ordered. sidered the foundational performance www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • September 2020 • 69 TECHNICAL FOCUS: INSTALLATIONS of what’s become the drive-in concert rig comprising five K2 tops and four mix was on a matrix, so we had PA phenomenon. That show, kept a SB28 subs per side, stacked on either control and FM control,” Demonbreun closely held secret ahead of time, had side of the flatbed trailer. “There was explains. “The real challenge with that a limited audience of doctors, nurses, no rigging,” he says, “so we had to was, at what point to delay the FM to and other front-line medical workers stack them, and we were going to go the PA? What Roz and I did was delay from Vanderbilt University Hospital in with six boxes per side but there was the FM transmission to where the PA Nashville, about 40 miles to the west. a limit to how high we could go with coverage started falling off. That way, But the ad hoc spectacle was some - just the three of us moving the boxes people in the back could tune in and thing that would have been familiar to onto the trailer.” not have too much of a time Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in smear. We figured most people in the their classic lets-put-on-a-show-in- Tuning the drive-in middle to front would be outside of the-barn! musicals. Demonbreun, who had been sched - their cars in their sectioned-off area. In “It was put together on the fly, so uled to go on the road with Rage a perfect world, we would have been last minute—I’d never heard of anyone Against The Machine earlier in the year able to fly a system and then have doing a concert at a drive-in movie followed by a fall tour with Urban prior some delays around the venue, but theatre or even thought about it until to touring’s global shutdown, says the the drive-in did not want to block the COVID came along,” recalls Chris drive-in venue posed some chal - big screen that was behind the stage.” Demonbreun, system tech for the lenges, including adjusting the sound- scaled-down L-Acoustics K2 system area coverage to account for any Driving up supplied by the Nashville office of reflections from the parked automo - Parking lot shows—a “drive-up” Sound Image for the concert, which biles. “What helped, though, was that instead of a drive-in—are also was itself a scaled version of Urban’s we were on grass; it might be different becoming popular during the pan - stage show. Originally with just the in a [hard-surfaced] parking lot,” he demic, such as the one Brad Paisley artist and ProTools engineer Jeff says. “If I could do the show again and did in the Tennessee Titans’ Nissan Linsenmaier onstage managing back - could do whatever I wanted, I would Stadium parking lot in July. With plen - ing tracks on a flatbed trailer in front of have a flown PA with some delays ty of sports venues as empty as the the theatre’s outdoor screen, Urban’s around the parking area.” music venues, they offer the opportu - second guitarist and keyboard player Demonbreun says predictive soft - nity for a big stage with a flown PA Nathan Barlowe joined in at the last ware helps lay out coverage designs— and video walls flanked left and right, minute, all standing 10' apart. It he uses Soundvision for L-Acoustics Demonbreun says. In many ways, caught the imagination of a nation PAs—and in this case each box had these concerts are business as usual, starved for live music and would its own amplifier beneath it, so he though often scaled down in certain become the template for what Live made extensive use of the LA Network ways. When singer Jon Pardi did his Nation, the world’s largest concert pro - Manager’s Air Compensation EQ tool, Live From The Drive-In show from the ducer (and thus the company bearing designed to provide a single gain set - parking lot of the Ruoff Music Center the brunt of live music’s sudden shut - ting to control the shape of a linear- near Indianapolis in July, front-of- down, with its Q2 2020 YoY revenue phase FIR filter, re-establishing the house mixer Colin Street had a falling by a heart-stopping 95%) would original frequency response of loud - respectable 24-box L-Acoustics left- quickly formalize as Live From The speaker enclosure. “In long-throw right K1 system to work with, provid - Drive-In, a limited-run concert series applications, high-frequency propaga - ed by Mid-Sound America, with as made for social distancing that includ - tion can be strongly affected by air many smaller K2 boxes for two rows ed shows by Brad Paisley, Jon Pardi, absorption,” he explains. “The Air of left-right fills, necessitated by the Nelly, Darius Rucker, and others at Compensation tool smooths it out so widely spaced array of cars that com - drive-in theatres and other various that no one close to a box gets annihi - prised the audience. What was differ - venue parking lots in Nashville, lated by the high end, because you’re ent for him was the Midas M32 con - Indianapolis, St. Louis, and elsewhere. not overworking the high-end drivers sole Pardi’s crew brought to this Working with front-of-house mixer in the PA.” (Demonbreun has meas - show and one in the Nissan Stadium Roz Jones and monitor mixer Joe ured these shows’ volumes at about parking lot, another in the same Calabrese, Demonbreun (a descen - 99dB, A-weighted, peaking around series, instead of the larger Yamaha dant of one of Nashville’s 18th-century 101dB.) PM7 he usually uses. founders who shares his often-mispro - But in true drive-in fashion, the “The actual shows aren’t very dif - nounced surname with a main thor - audio was also being delivered, via an ferent to mix,” he says, and are made oughfare in the city) used L-Acoustics’ FM transmitter that radioed in the even less so by the fact that many of Soundvision software to position a K2 audience’s cars. “The front-of-house these shows aren’t using FM trans - 70 • September 2020 • Lighting &Sound America e n i l e g a t S f o y s e t r u o C : o t o h P Mobile stages, such as this Stageline SL100, have become popular with Christian music tours, Kordyjaka says. missions to car radios as they are tanced as much as possible, and we recalls of the abbreviated Live from when done in actual drive-in theatres. made sure hand sanitizer was every - the Drive-In shows. “Keeping every - “What is different is that we’re trying where. We all took as many precau - one socially distanced isn’t that hard, to scale back the production we tions as possible.” considering how few of us there are.” carry, to bring our overhead costs While seemingly every crew mem - Live Nation’s protocols for the audi - down, so everyone can get paid.” (A ber on tour has a second and some - ence were also comprehensive: As reminder that these unique kinds of times even third backup on the road attendees drive up to the gates, shows are not being done for the during normal times, the role of crew they’ll scan their tickets through sake of novelty, and that musicians safety supervisor has yet to be for - closed windows; cars and their tail - and touring AVL crews have largely malized.