It can now be announced that L-Acoustics loudspeaker systems, spatial audio processing and power-efficient amplification were deployed across three stages at Les Escales music festival on the port island of Île du Petit Maroc in Saint-Nazaire, France. The annual festival, staged in July across a working port between the Loire estuary and the Atlantic, has served as a real-world testing site to assess audio power draw from the local mains grid while restricting spill across neighbouring performance areas.
On the main Scène du Port, certified provider B Live flew two L2 over one L2D enclosure per side, paired with an out-fill array of one L2 over one L2D per side. Low-frequency reinforcement has been handled by 18 KS28 subwoofers in a cardioid configuration, split between left, centre and right, with four Kara II enclosures per side providing front-fill coverage.
System engineer Laurent Pinet ran the main stage rig from LA7.16 and LA12X amplified controllers, chosen to meet headline coverage demands on fewer amplifier channels and enable the stage to operate directly from mains power.
To quantify actual electrical draw, the L-Acoustics CSR team partnered with energy monitoring specialist Visu Énergie to track power consumption across Scène du Port throughout the event. The data contributes to M.A.T.R.I.C.E., a three-year French research programme investigating the environmental footprint of touring live productions, led by live music union Ekhoscènes with Live Nation and backed by the national France 2030 investment plan.
For the second stage, Scène Estuaire, B Live system engineer Pierre Tranchant deployed a frontal L-ISA immersive sound configuration comprising five arrays of two A15 Focus and one A15 Wide enclosures. The rig has been supplemented by eight KS21 subwoofers, two X12 out-fills and seven X8 spatial in-fills, driven by LA12X and LA4X amplified controllers. Visiting sound engineers were briefed in advance alongside audio specialist La FabSonic to prepare object-based mixes for festival soundchecks.
At Club 360, an open-air circular dance floor bounded by shipping containers, Saint-Nazaire provider Altis installed an immersive perimeter system managed by technical director Wojtek Rola. The design features two L2D enclosures paired with KS28 subwoofers as the main system, supplemented by six container-mounted stacks of one A15 Focus and one A15 Wide, alongside eight X8 enclosures encircling the central DJ booth. Driven by LA7.16 and LA12X units, the system uses the L-Acoustics DJ platform to separate stereo DJ inputs into stems – vocals, synthesiser, bass and drums – in real time and place them spatially across the dance floor.
Milan-AVB networking has been routed across all three stages using P1 processors and LS10 switches, alongside dedicated L-ISA spatial processors. B Live modelled the entire festival site within a single Soundvision file to control dispersion and prevent bleed between stages, augmented by a site-wide lidar scan to analyse perimeter boundary propagation ahead of future editions.
Samuel Birais, technical director at B Live, said: “We asked ourselves what would give the public a better experience, and the answer was a different technology for each stage: L2 on the main stage, L-ISA on the Estuaire stage and L-Acoustics DJ in Club 360.”
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