Something very special has been brewing at Glastonbury’s The Glade Stage for many years now. At its heart is an adventurous spirit and a hunger for innovation. This is the place Funktion-One’s Tony Andrews chooses as the playground for his latest technological developments, where he continues a legacy that started at the very first Glastonbury Festival in 1971. This year, 54 years later, Andrews and Funktion-One, working in collaboration with Audio Plus, will continue a trailblazing ethos that has established The Glade Stage as the place for the most exciting sonic experiences at the festival.

Funktion-One returns to The Glade in June with its outstanding Vero VX system. Combining audio excellence and ease of deployment, VX delivers audience engaging mid-range, vocal clarity and a dynamic range that gives artists - from live bands to DJs and vocalists across musical genres - the headroom to really involve and move people.

The system will be completed by Funktion-One’s signature asymmetric bass, with a block of F124s on one side dedicated to bass frequencies and a column of newly improved F132s for sub-bass. “We’ve sorted out the resonance, given it more control,” says Andrews about the F132. “It’s a different beast now.”

The asymmetric bass approach was first pioneered by Funktion-One at Ultra Miami in 2017 and is now firmly established as an extremely effective technique for controlling low frequency wave behaviour, to ensure maximum audience enjoyment and minimal spill outside the desired field of sound. Bass arrives as a singularity; clean, coherent and chest-thumping, free of the smearing that can occur with more conventional bass setups.

The Glade Stage sound is appreciated by fans, artists and engineers alike. Whether it’s a live band’s kick drum or a DJ’s sub drop, the delivery is precise, present and alive. This is achieved by engineering loudspeakers that naturally perform to the highest level without the need for corrective EQ, which results in Funktion-One loudspeakers being extremely energy efficient compared to other systems.

“Our loudspeakers turn far more of the electrical energy used by the amplifiers into audio output,” says Andrews. Most people don’t realise the average loudspeaker is only about 1% efficient. In contrast, the midrange devices in Funktion-One’s systems have shown median efficiencies of 10%, with peaks of 30%. That’s at least a tenfold increase over conventional systems.

That means fewer speakers and amps, lower power draw, less weight to transport, more dynamic headroom and a cleaner, greener festival sound. “While others shout about deploying huge quantities of loudspeakers like that’s a badge of honour, we can talk about how few speakers and amplifiers we need for a much more impressive result,” says Andrews.

Ultimately, Funktion-One’s presence at The Glade Stage isn’t something to read about, it’s something to experience. In an era of over-produced sound and underwhelming experiences, this is where audio finds its soul again.