The More Than a Music Festival has been one of Hangzhou’s most prominent music events since its first edition in 2019. In 2025, the event brought together a large audience on November 15 and 16 at Baima Lake, an extensive green area with wide open spaces where cultural activities and large-scale outdoor events are held.
The festival integrated service areas, rest zones, and food and beverage stalls, complementing the musical programme. Around 15,000 people attended the event over the two days.
The 2025 lineup offered a combination of rock, hip-hop, indie, and electronic music, featuring performances by leading artists from the Chinese and Taiwanese scenes such as Liang Bo, Ma Siwei, MC Pharaoh, Soft Lipa, and Sunset Rollercoaster. All of them enjoy strong followings among the country’s younger generations. With this mix of styles and an audience drawn from across the region, the festival consolidated its position as a key music event within the city.
Long-distance coverage in an open-air venue
Hosting the More Than a Music Festival on a large, fully open grass esplanade presented several acoustic challenges. The large audience required uniform coverage over long distances, maintaining clarity and sound pressure levels even in areas far from the stage. At the same time, the festival’s location—within a green area commonly used for cultural activities and large public events—made it necessary to control sound propagation towards nearby residential areas and sensitive surroundings.
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The inherent conditions of an open space added further complexity to the system design. The total absence of physical barriers encouraged sound dispersion and required careful management of factors such as wind, humidity, and low-frequency energy loss. In addition, the artistic programme—focused on rock, hip-hop, and other high-dynamic styles—required a system capable of delivering definition, punch, and accurate reproduction of both vocal and instrumental content in a large-scale environment.
The power of LARA as the main system
The sound system was designed to ensure uniform coverage across the entire esplanade while maintaining controlled dispersion in a fully open environment. The installation was carried out by Hangzhou Qijiang Stage Design Technology, while Hangzhou Bonney Advertising Planning acted as the rental company supplying the systems.
The main system was configured in L/R with two line arrays of 14 LARA units per side, delivering the required sound pressure and stable long-distance projection. Each module provides a maximum SPL of 145 dB, ensuring the capacity needed for an event of this scale. In addition, its cardioid technology helped reduce rear energy, a particularly important factor in a location close to urban areas.
Side reinforcement was handled with the installation of eight LARA units as side fills, intended to cover audience areas outside the main coverage zone. In the low-frequency range, 16 LARA-SUB subwoofers were deployed under the stage to ensure a powerful and controlled response—especially important for rock and hip-hop performances requiring punch and definition in the low end. The stage was also equipped with eight ARA-M210A monitors, providing accurate reference for the performers during the shows.
For front-row coverage, 12 AERO-12A units were used as front fills, ensuring clear and balanced listening in the area closest to the stage. At greater distances, 24 SARA units were deployed as delay towers, extending coverage to the far end of the site without loss of definition or abrupt level variations.
Conclusion
The configuration designed for the More Than a Music Festival demonstrated its ability to deliver homogeneous sound in a large, fully open-air space, where distance and dispersion could otherwise compromise the audience experience.
According to Germán Rodríguez, systems engineer and Head of Technical Support for DAS Audio in APAC, the power of LARA as the main system, together with SARA reinforcement in the delay towers, allowed us to maintain a uniform level and excellent clarity across the entire esplanade—an especially demanding requirement for a festival of this size.
Germán also highlighted the importance of dispersion control in an environment without physical barriers. In his words, “LARA’s cardioid technology was key to keeping the sound under control and reducing rear energy, avoiding disturbance outside the festival area and improving definition in the mix”.
The result was a balanced and precise sound experience across all audience areas.
