Pickathon Celebrates 25 Years By Moving Main Stage Over To Martin Audio

The most famous roots festival on the Northwest Pacific Coast, Pickathon 2025 celebrated its 25th anniversary by adopting a premium Martin Audio Wavefront Precision system for its main Paddock Stage — set on the picturesque Pendarvis Farm, in the Happy Valley district of Portland, Oregon.

When word reached Martin Audio's Simon Honywill from long-time friend Graeme Harrison that festival chief, Zale Schoenborn, was looking to upgrade the main stage sound, a meeting was soon brokered with local AVL rental house Cascade Sound, who immediately invested in 20 WPC and 10 SXC118 cardioid subs, along with THS, FP12 and XE wedges. As their VP Engineering and System Designer, Sean Rathbun — who was project lead at Pickathon — points out, "While this was our second year at the event, we have staff that have been supporting it for a number of years."

Simon Honywill, meanwhile, set to work on the design. Describing the site as "wooded and scenic", he said, "It's a very cool and crafted festival, and the aesthetic changes every year. Sustainability is a core value here and pretty much everything gets re-purposed in some way. This festival is deeply connected to the lifestyle of Portland." At the heart of this year’s scenic expanse was a series of rhythmic timber cylinders, forming a dynamic backdrop to the Paddock Stage highlighted with some excellent lighting.

However, in recent years, housing has been developed close to the site, and with no apparent noise control or monitoring, complaints started to appear. Honywill, with the aid of Martin Audio Product & Application Support Manager, Joe Lima, knew that Martin Audio’s advanced control could mitigate this, and the deployment of cardioid subs would create the necessary rear rejection.

"We measured the SPL at the boundary, and it tied in with what DISPLAY [software] had predicted, with 35dB reduction at the boundary," continued Honywill. On the stage itself, the site topography dictated that the left and right stage wings should be optimised differently. Hangs of nine WPC per side were complemented by 10 SXC115 in a broadside formation across the front — a set-up which was also expected to meet the aesthetic.

"We had to explain why, from an audio perspective, it was good to have the PA on show … and agreeing that such a great sounding PA should not be compromised, they went with it," he said. And it certainly paid dividends. In addition, the Martin Audio speaker complement included eight FlexPoint FP12, (for frontfill and outfill), two THS with two SXC115 for sidefill and a combination of XE300/XE500 for artist reference monitoring. The set-up was driven from iKON iK42 DSP amplifiers in 1-box resolution.

Described as "a summer camp for the soul" and "an immersive, nature-based music festival" this four-day honky-tonk — spread over nine stages with 55 different acts — was another resounding success which again brought the nearby city of Portland to life.

It was an enjoyable excursion for Simon Honywill, and one where he got to also work with the talented house engineers, Anya Gearhart at FOH and Mai Lon Brosseau on monitors.
Summing up, Sean Rathbun added, “The Martin Audio PA worked wonderfully for this festival — the rear rejection, the articulation of the high end and the overall clarity of the PA were exceptional.

"The engineers I spoke to enjoyed mixing on the system; Joe Lima spent time with each engineer to ensure their experiences were seamless and the system performed phenomenally well."

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