Among the top-grossing acts since its first tour in 2015, with this year’s outing Dead & Company Final Tour shattered all of their previous totals. Across 28 shows in 19 cities, according to Billboard Box Score, Dead & Company grossed $114.7 million and sold 845,000 tickets. As has been the case since the outset, Dead & Company was again accompanied by a Meyer Sound reinforcement system provided by UltraSound, and for the second year, the core of the system was powered by Meyer Sound PANTHER large-format linear line array loudspeakers.
However, the magnitude of this final leg of “the long, strange trip” must be measured by more than hard numbers. It marked the coda of a resilient cultural and sociological phenomenon—launched by the Grateful Dead—that has spanned nearly six decades and three generations.
As with last year’s tour, the PANTHER-based system adapted to a mix of large venues, in this case, one indoor arena, one college football stadium, nine MLB baseball stadiums, and 14 large outdoor pavilions. Each venue type required significant adaptations of the base system, but fortunately, the relatively light weight and compact size of the PANTHER loudspeakers made the changes quicker and easier.
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“The change from LEO family boxes to PANTHER came in particularly handy for the delay towers,” said Derek Featherstone, tour director/FOH mixer for Dead & Company from the beginning and also CEO of UltraSound. “The audio delay towers are limited in total weight capacity, but with PANTHER we were able to hang more cabinets out there for better coverage in the back rows of stadiums.”
The main system for stadium shows comprised four main PANTHER arrays—two front and two side—each with 14 PANTHER-L long-throw loudspeakers and 4 PANTHER-W wide coverage loudspeakers.
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