L-Acoustics K3 Brings Festival-Grade Power to OM, Wallonia’s Premier Concert Venue L-Acoustics K3 Brings Festival-Grade Power to OM, Wallonia’s Premier Concert Ven...

XLR deploys K3 line array in the former Cockerill workers’ hall, now Wallonia’s largest live music venue

SERAING, Belgium – July 2026 – OM sits in Seraing, on the banks of the Meuse just outside Liège — a city whose industrial identity runs so deep that its nickname is La Cité Ardente, The Burning City. The building dates to 1948, designed as a banquet hall for workers at the Cockerill steel complex, the industrial giant that made Seraing the ironmaking capital of continental Europe. After decades of abandonment that followed the decline of Wallonia’s steel industry, the team behind Les Ardentes — the Liège festival that has drawn 75,000 attendees and major international acts every summer since 2006 — saw the potential for a new kind of venue. Opened in October 2023, OM’s main room holds up to 1,700 people and programmes everything from metal and jazz to techno and hip-hop, making it the largest and most versatile live music space in Wallonia.

The challenge was acoustic as much as aesthetic: a 1,500-capacity industrial room hosting everything from jazz to techno, with a technical brief that demanded festival-grade SPL and full-bandwidth coverage in a space where neither visual bulk nor subwoofer sprawl were acceptable. “We wanted to amaze our audiences,” says Fabrice Lamproye, Venue Director. “We wanted a system that was loud, impressive and festival-grade, but also compact enough to fit into our medium-sized venue.”

L-Acoustics Certified Provider XLR was brought on board to deliver the project. Their proposed solution: L-Acoustics K3.

K3: the Logical Answer

“As someone from Liège, I come to OM almost every week as a punter,” says XLR CEO Louis Lukusa. “I was personally invested in getting this right.” XLR has over 15 years’ experience deploying L-Acoustics across Belgium and Luxembourg, distributing across theatres, cultural centres, clubs and bars. When it came to OM, Lukusa had both the regional roots and the technical depth the project required.

OM’s brief was to design and deploy a system that would perform consistently across every genre. It had to be high-spec enough to satisfy the expectations of international touring productions, all without visually dominating the design of a relatively intimate space. K3 answered both requirements: rated 40 Hz to 20 kHz with no external subwoofer dependency, it delivers full-range output in a package compact enough to disappear into the room.

“K3 was the logical answer,” says Lukusa. “It’s the newest system in the range, and it comes with full bandwidth and uncomparable native contour built in — that changes everything in a venue like this. We didn’t have to rely on additional subwoofer deployment to fill out the low end. The power is already there, in a form that fits the space.”

The choice was reinforced by L-Acoustics’ standing on international riders. “Touring productions know the brand,” he adds. “Their recognition and acceptance is already there.”

“The most important thing we consider when evaluating a new sound system is its quality,” says Fabrice Lamproye, OM’s team coordinator and booking agent. “And we want to ensure that our artists will be happy with it. We’ve been working with L-Acoustics for years now, we have another system in a smaller venue that we’re really happy with, and that’s why we opted for K3 at OM. We knew that it would meet our need for clear and powerful sound.”

Eight a Side, No Delays

With K3 selected, XLR moved into the design phase using L-Acoustics Soundvision, modelling the system to verify the coverage predictions and refine the speaker positions. OM’s 1950s design means that its acoustic environment can be challenging, and being able to model and plan for this in Soundvision before a single cabinet was hung made a significant difference.

“With eight K3 per side, we could cover 100% of the audience area without a single delay speaker,” says Lukusa. “We achieved about 3dB distribution across the full audience and a sound integrity figure of almost 93%. We were incredibly impressed with these figures for a venue of OM’s size.”

The main system centres on two hangs of eight K3 per side — the install variant of K3, specified here for its permanent rigging credentials. Subwoofer coverage is delivered by four KS28 per side, flown alongside the main arrays rather than ground-stacked, meaning the low frequencies are distributed evenly across the audience and keep the stage area clear and unobstructed for the full range of productions OM hosts. The side-hung configuration also serves the venue’s electronic programme well, supporting the kind of stereo bass imaging that these genres demand.

To ensure consistent coverage throughout the room, a pair of X12 address the near-field in-fill areas, while four A10 Wide are deployed as front-fills maintain level and intelligibility for audiences closest to the stage. The result is a system that covers every seat from the front row to the back wall without disrupting any sightlines. Six LA12X supplied amplification.

A Reputation That Speaks for Itself

“We’re thrilled with the new K3 system,” says Lamproye. “It’s very exact, and that helps you in a space where the acoustics aren’t perfect. It gives you the control to manage what the room throws at you.”

The response from artists and touring crews has been equally strong. International productions arriving with high expectations have found a system they already know and trust, removing the friction that an unfamiliar rig can introduce. “From the very first shows, the bands were happy,” he adds. “That matters to us. We want artists to feel that this is a place where they can do their best work.”

For the venue’s audiences, the results have been just as tangible. OM has built a reputation in Wallonia both for the quality of its programming and its commitment to exceptional sound. “People come here because of the sound,” Lamproye concludes. “We wanted to bring the feeling of a big festival into a mid-size venue, and that’s exactly what we’ve done. K3 made it possible.”

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