Vienna Festival

The Vienna Festival is an annual event beginning in May that features an open air concert with at the park in front of the Vienna town hall. Usually there are between 30,000 and 40,000 people in attenfance. Sound reinforcement methods employed in previous years had been criticized for sounding unnatural and "amplified". In 1995, the Vienna Philharmic Orchestra, conducted by Zubin Metha performed Beethoven's 9th Symphony, and LARES was incorporated to generate the early reflected energy and later reverberation found in a good concert hall. The results were so good, that the sound company purchased a LARES system to use for the event annually. In a letter of thanks written to Lexicon, the City of Vienna commented, "This was the first time on this location with classical music that we were not critisized for spoiling the music by amplifying it."