Review of Meyer Sound at Savannah Festival: "It was Like the Room Collectively Gasped in Wonder at the Mix"

Georgia’s Savannah Music Festival has selected Meyer Sound systems to reinforce all four of its principal venues for the first time, including the largest Trustees Theater and Lucas Theatre. The exceptional audio clarity has prompted positive reviews amongst local press, including Connect Savannah.

“With the help of Meyer Sound’s new loudspeakers, [the Trustees Theater is] the best sounding room in town. Enough kudos can’t be given; when Taylor Goldsmith hit his first note, it was like the room collectively gasped in wonder at the mix,” writes Anna Chandler of Connect Savannah after hearing the concert by Dawes.

The selection of Meyer Sound was driven by Chris Evans, the festival’s chief audio engineer, who is responsible for system specification, tuning, and supervision of the audio crew. He also mixed Mavis Staples using a MINA line array loudspeaker system in the Trustees Theater. “We had great results this year with MINA,” he says. “The system has so much headroom that every engineer had more than they needed. It has made the Trustees a showcase venue.”

Jerry Douglas and the Earls of Leicester was the show that stood out most for Ryan McMaken, marketing and managing director for the festival. “We’d had similar acoustic acts play the Trustees in past years, but never with that level of clarity,” McMaken says. “It was definitely transformed this year.”

The 1,250-seat Trustees Theater was supported by twin arrays of 12-each MINA loudspeakers, four 600-HP subwoofers, and four UPJ-1P VariO loudspeakers for fill.

An M1D line array loudspeaker system was set up at the 1,165-seat Lucas Theatre for the Arts, while the 700-capacity Ships of the Sea outdoor shed featured a M’elodie line array loudspeaker system. At the 300-seat Charles H. Morris Center, artists such as the Barr Brothers and Buckwheat Zydeco were heard through a UPQ-1P loudspeaker system.

Other Meyer Sound equipment at the four venues included UPJ-1P, UPM‑1P, and UPJunior VariO loudspeakers; 700-HP, 600-HP, and M1D-Sub subwoofers; and Galileo loudspeaker management systems with Galileo 616 processors. MJF-212A and UM-1P stage monitors were also used. As in prior years, systems were provided by Rock N Road Audio of Tucker, Ga., with facilitation by Roy Drukenmiller and Robin Gang.

First launched in 1989 and adopting its current name in 2002, the Savannah Music Festival is the largest musical arts event in Georgia, hosting musical genres that range from classical to folk, bluegrass, blues, Americana, jazz, and reggae.