Garth Brooks Tour Underscores Sports Venues' Need for High-Quality Installed Sound The country superstar performed at pro and college football stadiums around the U.S. By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Thursday, June 6, 2019 - 10:28 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Oct. 20, 2018, was a pivotal date for Garth Brooks, the best-selling music artist in U.S. history. That day in South Bend, IN, he performed in front of 84,000 fans, the first concert ever produced at Notre Dame's football stadium. It was also the template for Brooks's next move: after a three-year tour of arena venues during which he sold more than 6.3 million tickets, he was scheduled to embark on another 36-month tour, this time of NFL and college-football stadiums in the U.S.
Country-music star Garth Brooks performed 84,000 fans in the first concert ever at Notre Dame's football stadium.
This next tour of even larger venues, which began March 9 in St. Louis, at The Dome at America's Center, comes as sports venues in general and stadiums in particular have been realizing that their installed sound systems and acoustical treatments need significant upgrades in an era when successful concerts will be necessary for those venues' economics to remain viable. An artist of Brooks's stature and his documented willingness to go the extra yard for the sonic quality of his live shows made the tour a spotlight on stadium sound.
Notre Dame was the prototype for stadium tours, says Josh Sadd, VP/chief engineer, Clair Brothers, Brooks's longtime sound-reinforcement vendor on tours. Sadd, who designs and tunes Brooks's touring systems, says his stadium-system design grew out of a two-night engagement at Yankee Stadium in 2016. For the Notre Dame show, the stage was placed at the 50-yard line; for subsequent gridiron venues, the stage was moved toward one end of the field but with room left for seating behind it.
The Venues' Systems
A characteristic of this tour and of most others that will be visiting stadiums in the future is the interface between the touring system and the venues' installed-sound systems. Interaction has been rare but is increasingly common, comprehensively covering upper-deck seating. In Brooks's case, the core of the touring rig is the Clair Brothers i218 line-array system, which at the Notre Dame concert used a total of 96 i218 array cabinets and 48 i212 cabinets in the main array hangs, all eight hangs featuring identical equipment.
In many cases, the tour will use some of the venue's upper-deck sound-system components. In that case, says Sadd, the tour's sound team will spend significant time with the house systems and its engineers, looking to critically align the touring and the installed components - speakers, amplifiers, DSP - into a single coherent system to the extent possible. He notes the additional time taken to align the touring system with the upper-deck JBL/Harman Pro speakers, amplifiers, and DSP at the Pittsburgh Steelers' Heinz Field for the May 18 show.
Acoustical tempering, however, is harder to achieve, because of wide variations in stadium geometries, particularly in their upper reaches. Sadd points out that some college venues have raked seating in a straight line from bottom to top, making acoustical modeling very predictable, and other stadiums have balconies and suites that intrude into the soundfield. The height of the highest seats also varies considerably from venue to venue, with NFL stadiums overshadowing the NCAA venues but with newer college stadiums starting to catch up.
Tough Room
What makes the Brooks tour different, however, is that it rarely plays a show the same day it loads in, providing more time for coordinating with the venue's systems and their operators. That was especially important for certain venues, such as the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, which has been notorious for sound issues since it opened in 2016 and through a series of concerts by U2, Kenny Chesney, and Ed Sheeran. The venue's live sound has been panned by professionals and consumers alike.
At U.S. Bank, we actually went out well ahead of the show to check it out, says Sadd. For some venues, getting the CAD [drawings] and consulting with the engineering people at the venue might be enough, but, for others, we have to be onsite well ahead of time. It usually takes between four and eight hours just to get that interface done, to decide which amp zones to use, and then to get them all properly time-aligned.
U.S. Bank also required Brooks's engineers to provide some acoustical treatment, mainly to cover certain key reflective surfaces, such as scoreboards, and to take the care to aim nearby speakers away from other reflective surfaces.
Dan Heins, Brooks's longtime front-of-house mixer, acknowledges that most tours won't have the same kind of time and latitude to interact with stadiums ahead of time and that, even though stadiums need to accommodate more types of entertainment than ever, they're still designed with sports as their primary mission.
Music isn't their number-one priority, and we know that, he says. So a tour like ours is definitely raising awareness about the need for quality sound and what it takes to achieve that. That's also being communicated by the system consultants, like WJHW. Stadium sound is getting better, but it will take a lot of work.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
19/08/2026
As the cost of IP nears price parity with traditional SDI, Reynolds argues that ...
19/08/2026
A private 5G bubble was chosen instead of traditional broadcast RF for the race ...
19/08/2026
(L-R) Rafael Manuel and Isabel Sicat attend the Filipi ana premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at The Ray Theatre on January 23, 2026, in Park Cit...
19/08/2026
Studio owners invited to have their say on rates cuts
The Music Producers Guild (MPG) are inviting UK-based studios to take part in an in-depth survey that ...
19/08/2026
Vintage-inspired desktop interface revealed
Harrison's latest hardware offering sees them head into the world of audio interfaces, delivering a 10-in/12...
19/08/2026
Granular effect remains locked to scale and tempo
Described as your dream granular effect , Minimal Audio's latest creation is capable of turning any s...
19/08/2026
First polyphonic SWAM instrument incoming
Audio Modeling's latest physical-modelling orchestral instrument is just around the corner, and is now availab...
19/08/2026
World Cup Games Generate 84 Billion Minutes Across FOX, Fox Sports 1 and NBCU...
19/08/2026
July brought typical peak-holiday drops in viewership, driven primarily by viewers stepping away from screens and a visible decline in reach across both traditi...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Henry joins BCE as the company accelerates its commercial strategy and expands its international presence across the media, broadcast and technology markets. He...
19/08/2026
iWedia, a leading provider of software solutions for connected TV devices, today announced a major milestone in Android platform optimization with the successfu...
19/08/2026
NTP Technology announces that ST 2110-30 audio-over-IP connectivity with AES67 and RAVENNA capabilities is now available for the brand's world-class audio i...
19/08/2026
Net Insight has been selected to provide its Nimbra platform by the service provider Big Blue Marble, formerly ORS Group, as the core media transport solution f...
19/08/2026
LiveU has supported Coventry City FC and several other top-flight UK football clubs through one of their most demanding live production challenges of the year, ...
19/08/2026
Nature Seekers Documentary Shot with Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF
Brie Clayton August 18, 2026
0 Comments
Filming endangered turtles required camera...
19/08/2026
Neyrinck Brings D-Control Consoles Back to Life on Apple Silicon with D-Control ...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Riedel Communications today announced that Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Perth, Australia, implemented a comprehensive communications infrastructure that brin...
19/08/2026
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest contribution solutions, will spotlight a major leap forward in remote guest con...
19/08/2026
Integrated platform melds media asset management, playout automation and newsroom workflows
EMAM, PlayBox Neo and SNEWS have officially launched Nuvex, a conne...
19/08/2026
Screen Australia releases the Private Investment Toolkit to strengthen screen in...
19/08/2026
Do Aussies truly value local content? Unpacking Screen Currency 2026 with Deirdr...
19/08/2026
There's an early Christmas gift for Bookish fans, as UKTV confirms the re-commission of the hit U&alibi drama, created by and starring Mark Gatiss. Viewers ...
19/08/2026
Wednesday 19 August 2026
Sky gives sports fans the chance to watch multiple liv...
19/08/2026
On Saturday September 5 Katie Taylor will step into the ring for the fight of her life against Flora Pili in front of 80,000 fans in Croke Park. A legendary fig...
18/08/2026
SportStream 2026, a free three-day virtual event, will take place September 15-17. One registration provides access to all three days of live programming and on...
18/08/2026
BeckTV will introduce BeckFlow to the European market at IBC2026, demonstrated on the Providius stand (10.F53).
BeckFlow is a web-based schematic documentation...
18/08/2026
Boland Communications will introduce a SMPTE ST 2110 input option for its 4K monitors at IBC2026, along with a new 55-inch super-narrow bezel display for video ...
18/08/2026
Dolby Laboratories and the Seattle Seahawks have announced a partnership integrating Dolby OptiView into the Seahawks' live streaming coverage, making the S...
18/08/2026
For BMG Executive Producer of Sports Production, Graham Taylor, producing live s...
18/08/2026
TMRW Sports has appointed Rufus Hack as President of Golf, a newly created role in which he will lead the company's golf businesses including TGL presented ...
18/08/2026
SMT will provide race technology for FOX Sports' coverage of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C. on August 23, when the NTT INDYCAR SERIES races ...
18/08/2026
The live, YouTube-native roundtables combine fan voices, credentialed reporters,...
18/08/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
18/08/2026
The industry legend sounds off on replacing the Heat's iconic Medusa score...
18/08/2026
William F. Rasmussen, the sports fan-turned broadcaster and entrepreneur whose out-of-the-box idea of a 24-hour cable sports network, ESPN, changed forever the ...
18/08/2026
DAZN Group has completed its acquisition of ViewLift, a provider of streaming and digital solutions for sports content owners. The acquisition was first announc...
18/08/2026
The American Association of Professional Baseball (AAPB) has added SI TV, Sports Illustrated's 24/7 streaming channel, as a broadcast partner for the remain...
18/08/2026
The Esports Foundation has announced that the inaugural Esports Nations Cup (ENC), originally scheduled for November 2026 in Riyadh, will be postponed to Novemb...
18/08/2026
Diversified has announced a new Global Managed Services Practice, consolidating the company's managed services capabilities into one organization. Rob Mello...
18/08/2026
Appear has completed a proof of concept with Thoroughbred Racing Productions (TRP), demonstrating multi-camera remote live production over bonded 5G cellular an...
Garth Brooks Tour Underscores Sports Venues' Need for High-Quality Installed Sound The country superstar performed at pro and college football stadiums around the U.S. By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
