MAVERICK IDEAS ENTER THE ARENA

Meet the newest members of our family of lighter, brighter, stadium-power moving heads built to rugged IP65 standards–extreme performance for the wildest ideas on earth.

MEET THE NEW PLAYERS band member to perform seamlessly anywhere in the stadium at any time,” outlined Viles. “We have three stage locations in the stadium and the band walk between them through the audience playing instruments or singing, so coverage has to be extremely thorough.”

To deliver this, the RF Engineer utilised products from several manufacturers, including Shure Axient AD2 handhelds for vocals, Sennheiser 6000 Series for wireless instruments and Wisycom MTK952 IEMs.

“I have been very impressed with Wysicom over the past few years,” enthused Viles. “The IEM packs are a true dual-diversity receiver, giving the user significantly more robust RF reception than many other products on the market. The wide tuning range of the Wisycom IEM system has also been advantageous on this tour, meaning that we no longer have to carry multiple sets of IEM hardware to ensure we can access all available spectrum wherever we are in the world – something that is imperative with the global nature of this tour. As a result, we are carrying less IEM hardware than we would need to with any other IEM product, moving us further towards a more sustainable and environmentally conscious solution.”

To deliver stadium-wide RF coverage, the team relied on a Wisycom RF over fibre backbone, comprising 20 discrete single mode fibres that link between the stages at either end of the stadium. “This system enables us to deliver coherent RF coverage of multiple IEM channels throughout the stadium and also enables us to run remote receiver antennaes around the stadium back to our main receiver rack through a Wisycom diversity antenna matrix,” Viles explained.

“At the start of this campaign, we researched a variety of battery technologies to find the best solution to power the radio mics and IEMs,” he added. “Rather than relying on Lithium technology, which is problematic for air freight and has questionable sustainability issues, we opted for a rechargeable NiMH battery package for all radio mics and IEMs due to the inherently safe nature of NiMH batteries and ease of recyclability. To date, this simple change has saved us from sending almost a tonne of alkaline batteries to recycling, which is a huge success both ethically and financially.”

Mission Control looks after the global RF licencing and compliance for the tour’s radio mics, IEMs, wireless cameras, wireless pyro, walkie talkies and wireless comms. The company also designed and supplied the tour with a bespoke monitoring and comms system for the audio and backline team.

Based around Riedel Artist 1024 Martix, the system enables the backline techs and the audio crew to control their own audio mixes from over a dozen locations around the stadium and communicate seamlessly, listening to their own discrete IEM mixes on Wisycom MPR50-IEM packs. The whole system runs at 96kHz, delivering a high-resolution, super-low-latency listening experience that the crew require and has been a game changer for the backline team, enabling them to work more autonomously both during the show and beforehand when tuning, editing or programming as things change during the day.

Finally, TPi had time to speak to Dan Roe and Laurie Jenkins from Tour Pro, responsible for designing and building a great deal of the backline as well as maintaining it out on the road. Roe spoke of the company’s involvement with Coldplay. “The band previously incorporated playback, keyboards and drum electronics together in one setup. However, due to the complexity of the new show and need for flexibility, the decision was made to split these systems into their own separate racks. Rebuilding everything allowed us to introduce new technology that enables us to better integrate with other departments and deliver the show the artist wanted.”

As Jenkins described: “Chris’s pianos are completely custom built. With the initial aesthetic from Misty Buckley, we enlisted Ben from Deadbuni and Hutch from Hutchinson Creative to bring the technical side to life. Taking four standard Kawai upright pianos with midi rails, we changed the outer woodwork and added a series of surface-mounted LEDs, along with an LED rail that tracks the notes played on the piano; all LEDs can be controlled by DMX. Neil Cole, Chris’s piano tech and tuner, keeps them all serviced daily as they are out in all elements.

“A ll the other keyboards are completely custom and built to each band member’s specifications. For example, Jonny Buckland prefers weighted keys but finding a 49-key weighted is not possible, so we converted some 88-key StudioLogic controllers and housed them in custom shells.”

As w ith many touring artists today, midi and automated control plays a vital role. “Putting this show together while the world was still in lockdown highlighted the need to have the backline systems as automated as possible. With the uncertainty surrounding live music during COVID-19, it was important we were set up for all eventualities,” Jenkins said. “Implementing the iConnectivity RTP midi network has enabled the playback team to send midi anywhere in the stadium.”

Roe continued: “The band is playing across three stages and traditionally running midi over