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London, UK-October, 2026. Pickathon is a highly celebrated, multi-day music and arts festival held annually at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, just outside Portland, Oregon. Known for its intimate, community-driven atmosphere, the festival curates an eclectic line-up spanning indie rock, folk, bluegrass, jazz and global sounds, prioritizing artists on the verge of breaking out. This year, Martin Audio Wavefront Precision sound systems, deployed by Cascade Sound, elevated quality, coverage and noise control across all outdoor stages.
Pickathon is famous for its stunning, environmentally sustainable stage designs, which use raw construction timber to create organic structures that blend seamlessly into the surrounding maple and pine forests. But with nearby residential neighborhoods having rapidly expanded, Martin Audio’s optimization technology proved central to the festival’s operational priority of mitigating off-site noise.
Every outdoor stage at Pickathon 2026 featured Martin Audio Wavefront Precision products. It is a homogenous design to provide consistency across the entire site, explains Simon Honywill, Market Development Manager, Live Sound at Martin Audio. The whole idea is that the Wavefront Precision quality and sound that people love maximizes audience impact while making sure the neighbors can sleep.
Joe Lima is Martin Audio’s Product and Application Support Manager who worked alongside Simon Honywill and Cascade Sound to model and optimize the festival arrays. They are inherently great-sounding loudspeakers, says Lima. At Pickathon, with varied topography and environmental challenges, the optimization capability within our DISPLAY 3 software was a stand-out advantage for even and precise coverage.
Cascade became the audio supplier to the festival in 2024 having acquired the previous supplier of many years. Their Martin Audio partnership began in 2025. I was at the point of needing to replace an aging inventory of speakers and so the timing was perfect to bring the WPC to the Paddock Stage, says Sean Rathbun, owner of Cascade Sound. That was a smashing success. Then in 2026 there was an opportunity to make a larger purchase of Martin Audio inventory, and so this year we were able to make all three of the larger stages Martin Audio.
At Pickathon 2026, the main Paddock Stage therefore comprised 11-per-side hangs of WPC Wavefront Precision Compact line array elements. The WPC system was supplemented by a wide broadside array of 12 Martin Audio SXC118 cardioid subwoofers, designed to significantly reduce spill to the sides and behind the stage.
Jason Power, Audio Manager at Pickathon, was impressed with the results. I have been really impressed with the sound. As a touring engineer showing up to mix a band, it’s fantastic to step up and not feel like you have to fight or over-process the PA.
WPC is a highly adaptable, flexible system with a clean, natural sound. It can deliver serious power, but it can also be subtle for acoustic acts, notes Honywill.
The Cherry Hill stage offered a more intimate experience, its system comprising seven boxes a side of WPC and two arrays, left and right, of SXC118 subwoofers in a two-by-two setup. Cherry Hill is challenging because, like the Paddock Stage, it is situated at the bottom of a hill with quite a steep rake, describes Jay Blaney, Field Application Engineer at Martin Audio North America. Importing the topographical data into our DISPLAY 3 software allowed us to optimize coverage angles physically and electronically so we achieve even coverage from the front to the back of the audience.
For more information, visit martin-audio.com.
