dBTechnologies ViO X206 Line Array System ignites worshippers at Encounter Night at the Jr. Seau Pier in Oceanside, CA.
The fifth year of ‘Encounter Night’ brought together dozens of churches from across San Diego County for an evening of music, worship, and unity. Hosted by Coastal City Church, the event featured a special partnership with Jesus Culture, a renowned Christian revivalist ministry
dedicated to igniting a passion for Jesus among the next generation. Daniel Blackman, Jesus Culture’s Front of House engineer, skillfully managed the sound, ensuring every moment of worship resonated deeply.
With the theme “One Mind, One Spirit,” the event highlighted the importance of community and collaboration among churches. The message of unity was powerfully underscored when pastors from the guest churches joined together on stage to share an uplifting and heartfelt message, making the evening a memorable celebration of shared purpose and connection.
House of God Productions based in Orange County, CA provided all AV systems including audio, lights, video playback, cabling and more. HOGP flew left and right arrays of eight dBTechnologies ViO X206 enclosures equipped with 100°x 15° waveguides per side for the mains system. This compact yet powerful full-range (66Hz to 18kHz) active loudspeakers incorporate 2x 6.5” neodymium transducers, and a 1” compression driver, driven by a Digipro class D 900 Watts RMS power amplifier equipped with RDNet, allowing for remote control with dBTechnologies’ AuroraNet software. The ViO X206s reach a peak SPL of 131dB. The main system was complemented by three ground-stacked ViO S118 Active Horn-Loaded subs on each side, extending the low-end response down to 39Hz. This setup ensured that the crowd could feel the impact of the worship deep in their core.
The Oceanside Pier in California holds 3,000 people. It has permanent benches for 1,500 people and an additional 1,000 folding or temporary chairs when preferred to a standing room setting. The evening consisted of two worship services— both led through song. Worship artist Chris Quilala of Capital CMG headlined the event, and pastor Brett Miller from Jesus Culture joined him in leading. The first service presented six leaders from various local churches, and the second had four vocal leaders singing and leading the worship.
One of the major challenges for this year’s fully sold-out event was that in the past years, the audience would crowd the stage and stand behind the main PA hanging on genie towers. “Stacking the outfills on their cart is incredibly useful for this sort of amphitheatre-style seating, and we countered the crowding with additional front fills.” Explains Jesus Culture FOH Sound Engineer Daniel Blackman who manned the board for all churches involved. The two ground-stacked outfill carts included three dBTechnologies ViO X206s in each, and four front-fill dBTechnologies ViO X206 with 100°x 15° waveguides were employed on the stage lip to address the front rows. “One thing I’m always impressed by is the way the ViO X206s pushes for its size. We had no problem covering a crowd of over 3000+ people with hangs of 8 per side, along with some front fills and side fills. Those boxes pack a punch!” Blackman kept the dB level averaging at around 97dB with peaks of 100dB: “We wanted to keep the mix full, present, and colorful while also making it comfortable for the average listener since we have people attending from many different backgrounds and demographics.”
Blackman is very familiar with dBTechnologies loudspeakers: “I have loved mixing on them for years. We’ve installed the boxes at both our Church campuses in San Diego and Sacramento, and love the value they provide for both live outdoor venues and indoor installs— the ViO X206 truly is an ideal box for many applications.” Blackman gave praise to one of his favorite console manufacturers: “We mixed everything using Allen and Heath dLive for FOH, and I love the way they pair together with the ViOs. Great full, round sound.”
