Route 66 Music Festival 2000

R3 provided Communications and equipment for the 2000 Route 66 Music Festival in Springfield, Missouri. The Festival took place on a 25 acre site outside of Springfield, and had 25,000 people attending. R3's sister company, MIB Security, provided crowd control services for the event. More on the MIB aspect is presented below. Route 66, while not being a huge project in terms of sheer numbers of radios, had signficant radio traffic load and several crucial departmental requirements, chief among them being concessions and food service support, box office operations, and security/crowd control. The Festival involved 90 radios, 2 repeaters, and 6 channels. The festival business office was located 15 miles away in Springfield, and the repeaters allowed office and administrative personnel to keep track of events on the operations and security channels. Repeater antennas affixed to the legs of the stage structure (not visible in the photo) provided 60' of antenna height. The repeaters were connected by wireline to our dispatch location about 1000' from the stage. At the dispatch location, additional base stations on the other 4 channels were also connected to a 2 position dispatch console setup, giving Mother operators finger-tip access to all channels. The guys in the yellow shirts At any music event, especially where alcohol is available, crowd control is essential. At an event such as Route 66 where there is a mixture of Rock 'n Roll and Young Country, the Festival Sound System is of significant size and generates a lot of energy. This energy is at cross-purposes with radio communications.
It is essential that crowd control has solid communications between all the extraction teams and the supervisor, as well as between members of each extraction team. The pit crew in front of the stage needs to be able to get help if a situation arises there. The mixture of alcohol, mud, and fun can become, ahhh...dynamic very quickly.
	The Route 66 site was 25 acres in size, with an additional 25 acres of parking, and 25 acres of camping area. Response time for teams was vastly improved with radio communications, and the Mother operators at the event were able to monitor all the channels in use and get MIB response teams moving in the direction of a situation as it was developing, usually arriving while the situation was still active.
In front of the PA Stacks, sound levels can reach and exceed 118-120 db, rendering normal radio accessories useless. Further, high-noise accessories must be tough, because of the likelihood of a team member getting involved in an extraction or fight suppression, and the radio and the accessories will be "down in it" with the team member. R3 has developed our own accessories for extremely high noise level applications, as well as employing products from other vendors. These accessories not only allow team members to communicate, but protect their hearing as well.





Our coordinated approach to the radio system and festival operations helped make Route 66 2000 a safe and controlled event where festival goers of all ages, including families, could feel safe. A 50-person MIB contigent, with good communications, was able to deal with 25,000 festival attendees.





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