L-Acoustics K Series Wins the Crown on Jolin Tsai’s Ugly Beauty Tour L-Acoustics K Series Wins the Crown on Jolin Tsai’s Ugly Beauty Tour...

Winly Sound powers the Taiwanese pop singer’s mega-concert series in the Taipei and Kaohsiung Arenas with L-Acoustics K1 and K2 line arrays

TAIPEI, Taiwan – November 2021 – Singer, songwriter, actress: Jolin Tsai reigns as the Queen of C-Pop, exploring diverse musical and visual styles while always leading the charts and the hearts of her fans since winning the 1998 MTV singing contest, which launched her career. Tsai has since won seven Golden Melody Awards and released 14 best-selling albums, the latest, Ugly Beauty, released in 2018. The album’s sustained popularity led to the fifth concert tour of the artiste’s career, staged over 16 months and two arenas in the Taiwanese cities of Kaohsiung and Taipei. The singer treated her fans to the album’s magical world aesthetic with a mega-concert production that included creative collaborations between set designers, dance choreographers, costume designers, and visual animators, with Tsai herself leading the production as art director.

Knowing that clear and powerful sound was needed to live up to the tour’s demanding standards, the tour production turned to Taiwan-based Winly Sound. With over 15 years of delivering L-Acoustics systems for the region’s most adulated pop stars on the biggest live concert stages, Winly Sound was swiftly involved in planning a sound system powerful enough to fill the 11,000-capacity Taipei Arena and flexible enough to match the breadth of Tsai’s diverse range of music.

Mike Li, Systems Engineer at Winly Sound, was supported by L-Acoustics Director of Application Alvin Koh and Application Engineer Chung Wah Khiew in mapping coverage for the two arenas using Soundvision system design software. “Soundvision helped us greatly. It is an indispensable tool for this concert, or any event for that matter, as we could design the most accurate angle for every speaker according to the venue,” explains Li. “This improves our efficiency, and the coverage analysis reassures me, even before setting foot inside the venue, that we’ll get optimized sound distribution throughout the arena.”

The robust rig that Winly designed for the arena consisted of a primary line array system featuring 12 K1 with four K2 per side, accompanied by eight K1-SB subs flown behind each array. Floor stacks of 16 KS28 subwoofers delivered more low-end rumble for the arena audience. Front-fill consisted of eight Kara enclosures spread across the stage, while side-fill was accomplished with 10 K2 per side. A further eight K2 per side were flown as delays.

“My team and I know and trust the long throw capabilities of K1,” Li continues. “It is clear and powerful, making it an ideal choice for outdoor festivals or an arena concert like this.” 

A catwalk runway extended far into the audience, allowing Jolin Tsai to create a more intimate atmosphere for fans while creating a challenge for front-of-house sound engineer Tai Shan Chen, increasing the potential for feedback. “We overcame this by using K2 and its Panflex horizontal directivity to narrow coverage and avoid any interference,” he explains. Chen appreciated the L-Acoustics K series, which allowed him to deliver the full range of Tsai’s diverse music styles to fans. “I’m satisfied with the complete L-Acoustics system design for this tour,” he says. “Our performance was a dynamic mixture of pre-programmed electronic dance music and live instrumentation, and the L-Acoustics system handled the dynamic content very well.”