X Music Festival, Cardiff

Monitoring noise levels Wales’ largest music event, X Music Festival in Cardiff.

When the X Music Festival was launched in 2015 at Cardiff’s Bute Park, it attracted a significant amount of noise complaints. Before the event could return in 2016 the local council asked for a professional noise consultancy to be brought in to ensure the event could meet its licensing conditions and festival noise control obligations.

Organisers and production company 11th Hour Events contracted Symphotech to make sure noise levels didn’t bother local residents. Our first step was to create a noise plan, before attending the festival to monitor sound levels around the perimeter and all three stages.

All the information from these readings was fed back to the sound desks with particular attention to frequencies which were causing problems when noise levels became too loud. And it wasn’t just the public we looked out for; our crew were on hand to ensure work at noise regulations were being met too.