REBELLION FESTIVAL BRINGS PURE PUNK ENERGY TO BLACKPOOL WITH MARTIN AUDIO WAVEFRONT PRECISION
The Rebellion Festival is the largest independently run punk festival in the UK. Hosted inside Blackpool’s historic Winter Gardens, the festival features more than 300 live acts spread across six stages. Held over four days, it brings together tens of thousands of punk fans, musicians, and artists from across the globe.
For the year’s event, multiple Martin Audio Wavefront Precision line array solutions delivered the necessary power and dynamics, including in the Winter Gardens’ magnificent main Ballroom, the Olympia Room (known as Club Casbah for the event), and the Conference Room.
The festival rigs were supplied by Liverpool-based dBS Solutions. “In the main Ballroom, we deployed an all–Martin Audio system centred on WPL large-format line arrays,” explains James Roberts of dBS Solutions. “Club Casbah featured a WPC system, and we worked with the Winter Gardens team to manage and supplement their existing WPS system installed in the Conference Room.”
This was my first time running Martin Audio WPL in here. It sounded great and we had headroom for days!
The complete Ballroom setup comprised 10 Martin Audio WPL line array elements per side, supplemented by 12 Martin Audio SXH218 subwoofers deployed in a cardioid castle wall configuration. Eight Martin Audio WPS sub-compact line array elements, arranged in four pairs of two, provided front-fill coverage, while a pair of Martin Audio FlexPoint FP12s served as outfills. The Martin Audio coverage continued on stage with XE500 floor monitors, alongside a pair of TORUS constant curvature arrays ground-stacked on a pair of SXC118 subwoofers on each side as side fills.
“The Ballroom is a large space; it’s stunning, but it has a lot of reflective surfaces,” notes Roberts. “We were able to use Martin Audio’s Hard Avoid® feature via the iKON amplifiers - particularly targeting the huge curved ceiling - to help bring down the natural reverberation in the room. That helped immensely. The castellated sub array also worked very well in providing substantial rejection back onto the stage.”
In Club Casbah, the system comprised 10 Martin Audio WPC elements per side, paired with eight SXH218 subwoofers in a cardioid configuration, while six Martin Audio XE300 wedges provided stage monitoring.
Finally, in the Conference Room, the Winter Gardens’ house system of 12 WPS sub-compact line array elements per side was supplemented by dBS-supplied Martin Audio FlexPoint FP12 cabinets as stage monitors.
“This festival is a very fast-paced environment,” Roberts adds. “We have over 120 bands across our stages during the four days of the festival. The Martin Audio systems have been fantastic - exceptionally quick and easy to deploy. We have a crew that knows the systems inside and out, which helps us achieve the sound quality and consistency we need across every room.”
The final word comes from front-of-house engineer Arran Azz Culpan, who has mixed the Ballroom stage at Rebellion for many years. “It’s a fantastic gig,” he concludes. “Rebellion is like a big family, the whole punk scene is amazing. I know this room very well, and this was my first time running Martin Audio WPL in here. It sounded great and we had headroom for days!”
Photo Credit: Chloe Lloyd, dBS Solutions