Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2011, the Heineken Open’er Festival in Poland played host to some of the biggest acts on the planet recently, with the likes of Prince, Coldplay, Pulp and The Strokes gracing the stage over the course of the four day event.
With crowds of between 60,000 and 86,000 every day, the demands on a sound system for an event of this size are high, and for that reason, GMB Pro Sound, the company behind the sound system for the main stages, decided to power everything with Lab.gruppen’s flagship PLM 20000Q.
For many years GMB Pro Sound have been responsible for realising the sound for the biggest music events in Poland, having worked with the organisers of events such as the International Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autumn, IRCAM concert, the Ad Livitum Festival in Warsaw, Chopin and His Europe Festival, and the concert of the Wien Philharmonic Orchestra Concert.
As well as handling the sound for Heineken Open’er Festival for nine years, the company is also involved in such events as Top Trendy Festival, Coke Live Festival, TVN Sopot Festival, and SelecTor Festival.
“My colleague, the highly experienced sound engineer Janusz Klimowicz, was instrumental in our purchase of our new inventory of Lab.gruppen’s PLM 20000Q,” said Remigiusz Kasztelnik, director at GMB Pro Sound. “We had used fP and FP+ Series products before, but none of us had experience working with PLM Series. Initially, we considered threedifferent brands, but as soon as Janusz tried the PLM, he made the recommendation that we move forward with the Lab.gruppen products. In his words, Lab.gruppen is the best, without a doubt.”
GMB Pro Sound decided to make the investment, and purchased a number of PLM 20000Q units from Lab.gruppen’s Polish distributor Music Info, making them the first company in Poland to utilise the product. As well as providing a solid amplifier platform, boasting four discrete output channels (bridgeable), each rated at greater than 5,000 W into 2.2 – 3.3 ohms (4,400 W into 4 ohms), the PLM 20000Q also benefits from having the digital sound manipulation features of Lake Processing fully integrated into the package. The result, says the company, is a seamlessly unified sound reinforcement core that offers unprecedented flexibility in configuration, pristine digital filtering and delay, plus effortless ability to drive difficult loads. The Lake Controller software allows configuration, monitoring and tuning of the full system from a Windows laptop or tablet for complete control and convenience.
“For a relatively minimal current draw, it delivers extremely high output power across four channels, which makes the PLM 20000Q ideal for an event such as Open’er Festival.” said Remigiusz. “For example, we integrated the new units into our existing JBL setup, with four PLMs on each side of the main stage powering the line array hangs and subs, and another two driving the monitors. With Lake Processing handling system optimisation, the end results were incredible.”
As well as providing the PA for the main stage, where the likes of Prince, M.I.A, Coldplay, The Strokes and Deadmau5 joined renowned Polish artists such as Pustki, Brodka and Sistars, GMB Pro Sound also used the PLM 20000Qs on the Tent Stage, which played host to artists such as James Blake, Paulo Nutini and Chromeo over the four days.
