CRSSD Festival

Context

The Team

CRSSD Festival Delivers Immersive Audio Experience with L-Acoustics K Series 

The CRSSD Festival, a biannual electronic music festival held in San Diego’s Waterfront Park, recently celebrated its tenth anniversary with the MMXXV Spring event. This two-day festival attracts an estimated 16,000 concertgoers daily, who gather to experience their favorite DJs and artists. Since 2015, Show Imaging has been a key partner in supporting CRSSD festival management and production, with its concert division, Pro Systems, taking charge of audio deployments since 2021.

The Challenge

The unique genres of house and techno featured at CRSSD demand exceptional clarity and ample headroom across the entire frequency spectrum. Furthermore, the festival’s prime downtown San Diego location necessitates careful noise management to ensure sound levels remain reasonable at the property line and prevent audio bleed between adjacent stages. Adding to these complexities, strict time windows are imposed for checking audio systems at full show levels.  

The Solution

Pro Systems deployed over 250 L-Acoustics loudspeakers across all three stages: Ocean View, The Palms, and City Steps. L-Acoustics K Series systems, along with tools like Soundvision and Network Manager, were instrumental in achieving the necessary headroom and precise sound deployment. For City Steps and The Palms, distributed systems were flown from long, narrow truss structures, which not only looked visually appealing but also aided in maintaining reasonable SPL levels at the property line. To mitigate low-end bleed, all sub deployments were configured in a cardioid pattern. The L-Acoustics P1 processor and its M1 suite of measurement tools proved crucial for efficient system deployments, enabling offline tuning and alignment, as well as quick verification on show day within strict time constraints. The main Ocean View stage featured left and right main arrays of 16 LA12X-driven K2 speakers, supported by a cardioid hang of a dozen KS28 subs, with an additional six KS28 subs spread across the stage face. An array of eight K2 provided house-right out-fill, and ten A15 speakers served as front-fill. Stage monitoring included a dozen X15 HiQ units, with two A15 over two KS21 subs per side for side-fill stacks. Three Kara II over one KS28 per side of the DJ mix position functioned as “Texas headphones.”  

The Result

The L-Acoustics K Series systems delivered exceptional sound and impact, effectively directing energy to the desired areas. The cardioid configuration of the subwoofers on the Ocean View stage offered several significant advantages, including coupling with the mains, steering the low-end downwards, achieving quietness on and behind the stage, and providing a better tonal balance throughout the coverage area. Soundvision proved to be an extremely accurate tool for predicting coverage and frequency response, consistently matching real-world results with software models. The P1/M1 system enabled efficient system checks, data collection, and offline tuning, significantly accelerating the deployment process.  

Project photos