Sound provider Incorporated Magi has been using DPA microphones for Tampa’s annual Gasparilla Pirate Fest, created over 100 years ago by real estate marketing people to lure people to Florida in the winter. Each year up to 500,000 people turn out for the event, which simulates a pirate invasion by boat and a parade.
Incorporated Magi provides sound for the Parade of the Pirates, which features mainstay groups performing at stages at street corner intersections to provide ever-changing entertainment as the crowds walk around the festival. Until 1953, live ammunition was shot in the air and a few people got hurt, so now blanks are shot, and that's where DPA comes in.
“All the DPA elements can handle over 140 dB SPL so we use
4088 cardioid headbands as our announce mics and sound effect mics,” says Incorporated Magi’s Gary Baldassari. “This year we put the
4099 mic with a saxophone mount right on a camera lens shade and captured not only a great camera perspective, but extreme clarity also. We used a
4090 omni condenser in a Sony PBR 300 parabolic reflector and that was good, plus
4011 cardioids and
4017 shotguns as spot mics. We visually throw up and down the street so I need to create a preset of a group of mics in each shooting location, with others for when the bands stopped to play.
“There was extreme background noise: gun shots, cannon shots and thousands of children squealing. Even with all this very loud background sound of screaming people, gun shots, cannon fire and the like, there was no distortion to deal with due to the fact that the DPAs can handle such high SPL. They made that part of the job a breeze.”
WFLA Tampa Channel 8 – which has aired the event for more than 30 years – broadcast three hours of the parade, with a further hour streamed over the internet. As well as being a great day out, the Gasparilla Pirate Fest raises money for a variety of social programs including children's hospitals and homeless shelters.