Is this the music festival you’ve never heard of? In Białystok – a city in North East Poland, about the size of Hull in the UK? No? Judging by the 27 thousand followers on Facebook, we are the ones missing out here…
From the eclectic line-up, via the car park location, to the logo-ed up public transport, Up To Date exudes cool.*
Now in its eighth year, this unconventional festival gathers together the great and the good into a mainly techno and dance based line-up including, in 2017, Clams Casino from the USA, and O.S.T.R. homegrown in Poland, as well as Logistics from the UK and a variety of acts from around the world – some fifty in all.
The city council are keen to promote Białystok throughout the region and, given the emphasis on techno, electronic and dance acts, promote it to a young audience. This goes some way to explaining the slightly unconventional location of the city’s main sports stadium multi storey car park – not maybe the best location for pounding beats, but certainly cooler than tents in a field. The Deputy Mayor of Białystok, Rafał Rudnick, commented:
“[The] Festival content and the way it is presented not only encourages the return of those who have been before, but thanks to the efforts of the organizers, the positive message of the Festival is reaching a new and growing audience from outside our city and region. This is partly why we cooperate with the Up To Date Festival in building the image of the city of Białystok as a positive, open and friendly ”
Electronic Beats stage sponsored by T-Mobile – under construction…
With four stages including the T-Mobile Electronic Beats stage, the TechnoSoul stage and the Red Bull 3 Style Showcase, high quality audio was needed for the top sponsored acts. Polish audio Sound Support Pro were taking care of the main stages and specifically, Czekaudio from Hungary were tasked with providing the necessary quality system for the Electronic Beats stage. This took the form of a formidable amplifier line-up including E Series from MC2 and APA Series from XTA, to power a multitude of Funktion One boxes.
Now that’s a lot of amps for that size stage! E Series and APA running three phase to power the system.
The mains system was 10 x F121 subs all driven digitally by a single APA, with another APA handling the rest of the system – namely 2 x F215mk2, and 2 x Evo7EH. Fills were provided by 2 x Res2s, being managed by an XTA DP448 and driven by an MC2 E100, with the DJ monitors being PSM12s plus 2 x BR118 subs, again managed by the 448 and driven by an E90 plus E60 combo from MC2.
Funktion One doing the dance duties during set-up…
…and during the show.
Andras Bely, from Czekaudio, commented on the fact that, despite the challenging acoustics, the overall sound quality was incredible:
“I am so delighted with the power and quality of the APA amplifiers, I’m getting bespoke racks manufactured for them! They are probably the only amplifiers available today that manage to combine immense power for driving huge numbers of subs, with ultra-transparent processing for use on top end speaker systems such as Funktion One. Truly versatile, amazing amps!”
Clams Casino…*
…and O.S.T.R.*
He goes on to consider the lineage of APA, as his MC2 amps are also in high demand:
”Let’s not forget that Funktion One almost exclusively use XTA processing and MC2 amps on their systems – that kind of endorsement doesn’t happen by accident!”
A discerning crowd came to celebrate all forms of electronic, techno, and trance.*
The event ran for two days earlier in September and with an attendance of around 9000, it has gone from strength to strength each year, attracting a discerning crowd and ever more prestigious DJs, musicians and performers.
“I’ve got some of the new Deltas from MC2 on order and will definitely be trying them out on several stages – they seem to tick all the boxes for quality, power and connectivity and I can’t wait to have a play, especially with the iPad app!”
*Special thanks go to Pola Sobuń for her great additional shots!
