JBL Professional, in partnership with Spectrum Sound and Athey Creek Church, delivered concert-quality sound for the first-ever PDX Crusade at Portland’s Moda Center. The large-scale worship and evangelism event drew thousands of attendees and featured performances on Saturday by Cain, Taya, Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes, with Anne Wilson, Chris Tomlin, and Zach Williams closing the event on Sunday.
[A Waterfront View with a Total Rockin' Sound]
Planning for the PDX Crusade began nearly 18 months ago, with Athey Creek Church envisioning a two-day gathering to share a message of hope with the Portland community. Athey Creek’s congregation has grown into the tens of thousands, and hosting an evangelistic outreach event for the community required a much larger venue. With a capacity of nearly 20,000, the Moda Center was an ideal choice but also raised production demands to the level of a major arena tour. Meeting those expectations required the expertise of Spectrum Sound and a JBL VTX system powerful enough to perform on par with touring rigs used by today’s top artists.
Spectrum Sound designed and deployed a JBL VTX A Series system tailored to the needs of the venue and the touring artists. The system included 14 VTX A12 out fills per side, 18 VTX A12 front hangs per side, 30 VTX B28 subwoofers flown and ground-stacked, 16 VTX A8 cabinets per side for 270-degree coverage, 12 VTX A8 cabinets per side for backfill, and VTX A8 front fills, powered by Crown I-Tech 4x3500HD amplifiers.
Bobby George, business director at Spectrum Sound, noted that the strong relationships with both the church and the performing artists allowed for a custom audio experience. “We duplicated what the artists typically tour with, so when they arrived, everything was ready to go,” he said. “The system design, the placement, and especially the sub configuration exceeded expectations. Every engineer left impressed.”
Throughout the weekend, front-of-house engineers praised the JBL system’s balance, clarity, and powerful low-end performance. Anne Wilson’s front-of-house engineer, Aaron Padilla, noted that the VTX A12 and B28 combination provided the precision and impact needed for a worship event of this scale, while Chris Tomlin’s front-of-house engineer, Stephen Bailey, pointed out the system’s smooth, non-fatiguing high-frequency output allowed for higher overall levels without listener fatigue. “The A Series is very well balanced with a remarkably smooth and non-fatiguing HF output - so much so that I find myself consistently running 3-5 dB louder on these systems,” said Bailey.
“The JBL VTX A12/B28 line delivers impressive performance at a highly competitive price point, with surprisingly consistent results across every deployment I’ve mixed on this year,” said Shea Taylor, front-of-house engineer for Zach Williams. “Combining box performance with the ongoing improvements to its Venue Synthesis software - JBL is clearly listening - the platform is becoming an increasingly compelling solution.”