Outdoor concert monitoring, community noise, and the Cavanaugh Criterion

Abstract

Sound from outdoor concerts and other sources can be challenging to measure, especially in the midst of ambient noises and environmental effects. It can be even more challenging to evaluate the data toward resolution of complaints and satisfaction for neighbors. In the mid 1980s through the 1990s, Bill Cavanaugh was deeply involved in important projects involving measurement and especially evaluation of outdoor concert sound levels, and he became a recognized leader in the field, consulting on amphitheater and outdoor venue sound and addressing community relations throughout the country. This presentation will review one of the most significant projects, then called Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts, now the Xfinity Center, in Mansfield, MA, an outdoor amphitheater with total 16 000 seats (now nearly 20 000), in which the Cavanaugh Criterion took shape, more in response to the many touring rock shows (and for which one of the first “green-yellow-red lights” was developed for the sound mixers' easy visual reference and better sound level control) than as the summer home of The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Recent application of the Cavanaugh Criterion for concert level evaluation of loud, powerful sound systems will also be reviewed, along with implications for application to a much wider range of possible outdoor and even indoor noise intrusions.