TPi August 2017 - #216 by Mondiale Media

ADELE: THE FINALE BUILDING A LIVE PRODUCTION FIRST

GLASTONBURY 2017 • GUNS N’ ROSES LIVE • HANS ZIMMER’S WORLD TOUR • FESTIVAL FOCUS JBL SOUNDS OUT SUMMERFEST • BEAT THE STREET TALKS BUSINESS • EDDIE VEDDER IN LIGHTS

AUGUST 2017 #216

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Giles Smith / Fanatic Live

It’s been quite a journey following the success of Adele’s touring career. Albeit brief, compared to artists who have enjoyed similar success, when the Londoner does go on the road, she does so with innovation and class. Back in 2011, her show at Manchester Academy - with a mere 2,000 fans in tow - was my first foray into technical production journalism. Years later, her arena tour took in shows across the globe and stunned audiences with its elegant aesthetic. This year, her ambitious in-the-round stadium tour travelled from Australia to Wembley Stadium and, under the direction of Production Manager Richard Young, achieved a truly impressive live production. Turn to Pg. 20 to discover how this design was conceived and executed. Elsewhere, our mammoth Glastonbury coverage starts on Pg. 52 (Part II coming next month), and both Guns N’ Roses (Pg. 44) and Hans Zimmer (Pg. 34) get the TPi treatment. I also spoke to bussing legend (sorry Joerg, I know you’ll hate me saying that, but it’s true mate!) about 25 years of tour travel. Check out the story of our Austrian friends on Pg. 80. And in juxtaposition, David Howard, a 3rd year student at the University of South Wales, is just starting his career in live events, as he tells Stew in our new Production Futures column on Pg. 74. And now, it’s with a very heavy heart that I’m writing about mental health in this space yet again… just a week or so after visiting the very talented, humble, and lovely Linkin Park crew - seriously, you couldn’t ask to be in better hands from skill to mentorship - who tragically and suddenly lost their boss. Frontman Chester Bennington took his own life on 20 July and the consequences have been felt throughout the music world. It’s impossible to imagine what that sudden break in such a close bond must feel like, but having been at their last show, I can tell you that it felt like the happiest place to be. And that’s the terrifying thing. Depression, it would seem, has the ability to steal the happiness from any situation and leave you wearing a mask in public. Our thoughts go out to all of Chester’s loved ones, friends and touring family. RIP Kel Murray Editor EDITOR Kel Murray Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7738 154689 e-mail: k.murray@mondiale.co.uk

CHIEF EXECUTIVE Justin Gawne Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7768 850767 e-mail: j.gawne@mondiale.co.uk

ASSISTANT EDITOR Ste Durham Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8385 Mobile: +44 (0)7891 679742 e-mail: s.durham@mondiale.co.uk

GRAPHIC DESIGN & PRODUCTION Dan Seaton: d.seaton@mondiale.co.uk Zoe Willcox: z.willcox@mondiale.co.uk

STAFF WRITER Stewart Hume Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8385 Mobile: +44 (0)7702 054344 e-mail: s.hume@mondiale.co.uk ADVERTISING SALES Georgia Guthrie Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8399 Mobile: +44 (0)7501 597837 e-mail: g.guthrie@mondiale.co.uk ADVERTISING SALES Lauren Dyson Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7415 773639 e-mail: l.dyson@mondiale.co.uk EVENT MANAGER - TPi AWARDS Mo Naeem Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8358 Mobile: +44 (0)775 9272 313 e-mail: m.naeem@mondiale.co.uk GENERAL MANAGER - TPi MAGAZINE & AWARDS Hannah Eakins (on materninty leave)

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COVER DESIGN Adele by In The Bag - www.inthebag.pro EDITORIAL INTERN Denitsa Nikolova PRINTED BY Buxton Press • www.buxpress.co.uk Annual subscriptions (including P&P): £42 (UK), £60 (Europe), £78/$125 (RoW). Subscription enquiries to: Subscriptions, Mondiale Publishing Limited, Strawberry Studios, Watson Square, Stockport, SK1 3AZ, UK. Tel: +44 (0)161 476 5580 Fax: +44 (0)161 476 0456 e-mail: subscriptions@mondiale.co.uk www.tpimagazine.com www.tpiawards.com www.tpmeamagazine.com Issue 216 - August 2017

TOTAL PRODUCTION INTERNATIONAL is a controlled circulation magazine, published 12 times a year by Mondiale Publishing Limited under licence. ISSN 1461-3786 Copyright © 2017 Mondiale Publishing Limited. All contents of this publication are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, in any form whatsoever, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers. Every effort is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication but neither Mondiale Publishing Ltd, nor the Editor, can be held responsible for its contents or any consequential loss or damage resulting from information published. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Publishers or Editor. The Publishers accept no responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, illustrations, advertising materials or artwork. Total Production International USPS: (ISSN 1461 3786) is published 12 times a year by Mondiale Publishing Limited United Kingdom. The 2017 US annual subscription price is 117USD. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by Agent named Air Business, C/O WorldNet Shipping USA Inc., 155-11 146th Avenue, Jamaica, New York, NY11434. Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to Total Production International, Air Business Ltd, C/O WorldNet Shipping USA Inc., 155-11 146th Avenue, Jamaica, New York, NY11434. Subscription records are maintained at Mondiale Publishing Ltd. Waterloo Place, Watson Square, Stockport, SK1 3AZ, UK.

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ITINERARY

EVENT FOCUS

08 Summerfest Dan Daley discovers the effect the ‘world’s largest festival’ has on the professional audio industry. 12 Eddie Vedder Stew chats to LD Mat Burden about the Pearl Jam mainman’s European tour. 14 Justin Bieber Capital Sound and Outline join forces for the singer’s Cardiff performance. 18 Scarborough Open Air The Open Air Theatre takes steps to further its position as a major player in the global touring circuit.

PRODUCTION PROFILE 20 Adele Kel travels from Melbourne to London to learn the structural secrets behind the songstress’ final tour.

Hans Zimmer The famed film score composer entertains the audience with a tour celebrating his back catalogue.

Guns N’ Roses Ste travels to London Stadium to see the on-stage reunion of Duff McKagan, Slash and Axl Rose.

Glastonbury: 2017 Highlights Part I Before the famous festival takes a year off, we bring you the first instalment of technological and creative insights.

PRODUCTION FUTURES

TPi speaks to University of South Wales student, David Howard, fresh from his Glastonbury success.

CLOCKING OFF 76

Backup Kartfest 2017 raises £21,000 for entertainment technology professionals.

GEAR HEADS 78

Avid’s Principal Product Manger, Al McKinna, gives the lowdown on the VENUE | S6L.

INTERVIEW

Kel pays a visit to Austria, home of Beat The Street, to speak to Joerg Philipp about the company’s 25 year history.

FESTIVAL FOCUS 84

This month’s edition includes coverage of Parklife, Lovebox, Isle of Wight Festival and much more...

PSA: THE BIGGER PICTURE 98

Andy Lenthall examines the effect of the ‘gig economy’ on the self-employed and the wider industry.

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS

100 The latest movers and shakers.

BACK CHAT 106 Kiss’ LD Sean Hackett talks life on the road with the hard rock four-piece.

EVENT FOCUS

JBL DOES MILWAUKEE’S SUMMERFEST The biggest music festival in the world may also be its best-kept secret but, as well as fans, PA makers also flock to it. Dan Daley was on site to find out how important these large live shows have become to both the pro audio and music industries.

“It wouldn’t be a music festival without rain.” So said Brian Pickowitz, Director of Live Sound and Rental Systems for Harman Professional’s JBL PA system division, as he surveyed the darkening skies over Milwaukee, hoping that just saying it out loud would somehow ward off the impending thunderstorms rolling in from the west. It was the sort of hopeful spell the Potawatomi Indians, the long-ago inhabitants whose name for what would become this Midwest city translates as ‘gathering place by the water’, might also have tried. What the clouds were encroaching upon was opening day of Summerfest, the music festival the city on Lake Michigan has hosted in some iteration for half a century now. Certified in 1999 by Guinness World Records as ‘The World’s Largest Music Festival’, this year’s edition would be the most expansive yet, with over 800 acts performing across 11 stages over the course of 11 days, from 28 June through 9 July (with a one-day break on 3 July). Last year, a star-studded bill topped by Paul McCartney, Def Lepard, Peter Gabriel and Sting drew a record crowd of 804,116 people. This year, with Luke Bryan, Paul Simon, Tom Petty and Pink among others

on the marquee, festival producers were expecting to break the 1 million mark for the first time. A PRO AUDIO GATHERING Not surprisingly, Summerfest has become a place where pro audio manufacturers also go to be seen and heard. Clearwing Productions, the Milwaukee-based event production and sound reinforcement provider that has had the audio contract for the festival for over 30 of its 50 years (they won the Parnelli Award for Hometown Hero Sound Company of the Year in 2015), has been a benevolent gatekeeper for most of that time. While most of the stages are outfitted, not unexpectedly, with the L-Acoustics PA components that make up the majority of Clearwing’s inventory, the company makes a point of giving over a stage each year to another manufacturer’s platform. In the past, Nexo’s GEO and Funktion One’s Vero touring systems have each been featured on a stage. This year, however, JBL’s new A12 system, the latest addition to its venerable but evolving VTX series, was featured on not one but three of the stages, while its VTX 08

SUMMERFEST

Below: Tristan Wallace, Mix Engineer; JBL featured over 3 stages this year.

M Series wedge monitors appeared on those three as well as the Johnson Controls and US Cellular-branded stages. In terms of mindshare at an event of this magnitude, it was a coup, and one that Pickowitz and his colleagues on site felt rewarded the A12’s achievements. Virtually everything about the product has been redesigned, including HF, midrange and LF drivers; new rigging streamlined for faster deployment; and even new visual aesthetics. The abundance of JBL also reveals how the role of live sound has become vastly more critical in an era when live performance has replaced recorded music as the industry’s prime moneymaker. The competition that once took place between recording studios that used battleship consoles as their marketing flagships has now been superseded by tours and festivals whose PA riders now determine the top dogs of sound.

and monitor mixers and systems techs, who are the influencers of system choices.” The PA systems at large festivals are also becoming more diverse. While the top-bill artists will generally bring their own touring systems, multiple stages with a range of systems can act as a showcase for the PAs as well as the artists. “[Sound reinforcement] vendors are becoming more open to having more kinds of systems in their inventory; more tools in their toolbox,” said Gonzalez. “Many of those systems out there have been in their inventory for 10 or more years. The technology changes faster today. The VTX A12 is all-new and it’s at the very leading edge.” Bryan Brunclik, GM of Clearwing Productions’ Milwaukee office, agreed: “For years we’ve been an all-L-Acoustics house, but as we’ve grown we know we can’t stay a one-flavour house forever. We’ve been diversifying our product lines, and Summerfest is a place where we can check out new technologies right in our backyard.” Brunclik said the A12 got an unprecedented three stages there this year because JBL were able to provide enough production units to do so, something new products can’t always achieve early on. “Harman’s been a reliable partner, and we had a chance to listen to the A12 a few times prior to Summerfest, so we knew it was ready to meet our expectations,” he added. (Harman also added light as well as sound to the festival. There were an even dozen Martin Mac Axion moving-head fixtures on each of four stages). The A12 was deployed on Summerfest’s Uline, Briggs & Stratton, and Harley Davidson stages, each named for their respective sponsors (as well as a club-scaled V20/S25 system in JoJo’s Martini Lounge). FOH mixer Joe Adams, who mixed the Uline stage, the largest of the three, was unstinting in his praise of the A12, calling it: “One of the cleanest boxes I have ever heard. I don’t need EQ off the console to help the PA out.” Looking out over the top of the Digico SD12 FOH console (the entire festival used Digico SD5,

LIVE MUSIC RULES There are more live shows than ever before, as well as more sound systems to support them - the recent InfoComm Show in June saw a record twodozen PA system demo suites occupied by the major names in the category, as well as a growing number of aspirational imports. And festivals have become a particular focus for manufacturers because of the opportunities to put new sound rigs in front of more artists. “Festivals have turned into proving grounds for PA systems,” observed Raul Gonzalez, Applications Engineer, Live Sound & Rental Systems at Harman Professional, noting the JBL systems they’ve had at recent major EDM events including Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, as well as Coachella, Lollapalooza and the CMA Fest in Nashville. “These become opportunities to show our technology to those producers and artists.” Jeremy Smith, Harman’s marketing manager for touring and performing arts, echoes that, saying: “Festivals like this have become a new touchpoint for us. They’re where we can reach FOH

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SUMMERFEST

Joe Adams, mixing on the Uline stage; Brian BK Koerner mixing at the Harley Davidson stage.

SD10, SD12, SD9, SD8, SD11 and S21 desks for FOH and monitors) as the next band soundchecked on a windy afternoon, Adams, in his fifth year at Summerfest, marveled at how good PA technology in general has gotten in that time. He got to mix on the Funktion One Vero there last year and says competition between new PA technologies has raised the bar for the entire industry. “The tools are so much better now,” he said. Brian ‘BK’ Koerner leaned over the Digico SD5 FOH console positioned at the Harley Davidson stage. Koerner, who has mixed sound for touring artists including Matchbox 20 and the Little River Band, and is also the head audio engineer for the Major League Baseball Milwaukee Brewers’ stadium, also had praise for the A12. “It has tonnes of headroom, so I can keep the fader back most of the time,” he said. “I’ve had to pull it back a couple dB at 6K, and again at about 600 [Hz], but it’s incredibly smooth across the spectrum.” Tristan Wallace is in his eighth year as member of Summerfest’s Monitor World team. It was his first with the M Series wedges used on five of the stages, and he was pleasantly surprised at their performance. “They sound great, but it’s their durability - I saw one fall 3ft, bounce and just keep working without missing a note - and their features, like the A/B single- and dual-channel input modes, that really got my attention,” he said, just after the soundcheck for T-Pain’s 5 July show. Wallace, who also mixes monitors at festivals like Rock on the Range and Monsters of Rock, has noticed that many touring artists seem to have settled into a 50-50 relationship between IEMs and stage wedges. “It sometimes goes either way - I expected T-Pain to be all in-ears but he only used the M series wedges, and last night rock band PVRIS was completely in-ears - but most bands want some of each,” he said. “If there aren’t any audience mics [to feed into the IEMs], artists will complain that they just can’t feel the vibe onstage. The M Series monitors help with that because they’re so highly directional - I can put two of the next to each other and just slightly off axis and there’s no bleed at all.”

but in recent decades, as Summerfest took deeper root, the string of purpose-built performance stages grew to 11, anchored at the south end by a 23,000-seat amphitheatre. What touring professionals notice about the site is the permanence of the venues, which have concrete-block construction atop poured-concrete foundations. Pickowitz pointed under the Harley stage, where a fairly commodious crawl space a bit over a metre in height allowed not only ample storage but also an air-conditioned amprack room with conduit leading up to the stage, and even a rumpled couch for visiting crew to take a break on. Backstage areas are as good as any at most arenas, with private dressing rooms and toilets. Most notably, however, is the fact that the venues are under regular renovation, with major infrastructure upgrades and in some cases complete rebuilds about every seven years, on a rolling basis. Next year, for instance, the amphitheatre will have its roof raised nearly 9m to better accommodate touring sound rigs. The lower ceiling height compelled the Rolling Stones to truncate their Clair system in 2015. “Once they raise the roof some, that won’t be a problem anymore,” said Koerner. “It’s one of the best-run festivals I’ve ever worked. The [production office] knows what it’s doing.” That’s why mixer Joe Adams referred to Summerfest as being “like the Super bowl for sound guys,” and JBL’s Gonzalez calls it “the Gucci of music festivals”. Despite its massive scale and half-century of history, Summerfest has kept a surprisingly low profile, stretched out more like a well-paved and affordable county fair than the typical intense and expensive three-day affair that has to cram as many big acts as possible into a long and often exhausting weekend. Clearwing’s Bryan Brunclik noted that as the festival is operated by a non-profit organisation, it’s able to reinvest revenues into infrastructure, helping assure each successive event has an even better campus to work with than the year before, which also helps put an emphasis on production values. Sound mixers get to experience a range of new products, as well as chance to get to hang out with each other. It may also augur another inflection point in festival dynamics: as the sound systems continue to evolve and extended festivals continue to attract them as showcases, touring artists may be able to perform at these kinds of events without having to bring much more than their instruments. “Think about what that could mean to come artists during the touring season, if 95% of the time they were in a venue with a great sound system already there,” wondered Gonzalez. “Hey, it could happen.” TPi www.summerfest.com www.jblpro.com

CONSTANT RENOVATION Summerfest is potentially evolving a template for the future of festivals. For starters, as Koerner happily points out: no mud. While that brew of dirt and water has been a trope of music festivals since the first Woodstock, there was none to be found at Summerfest, which takes place in the Henry W. Maier Festival Park. The largely paved park began as the city’s first airport before it became the site of a Nike missile installation in the 1950s during the height of the Cold War. The earliest iterations of Summerfest used the missile control building and military barracks as administrative locations, 10

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EVENT FOCUS

EDDIE VEDDER After a successful European tour, the famed Pearl Jam frontman ended his solo run shrouded in the history of Taormina’s magnificent ancient Greek theatre, nestled on the beautiful mediterranean island of Sicily. TPi’s Stew Hume spoke to Lighting Director Mat Burden about the singer’s intimate stage show.

A far cry from the large scale stadium rock that made Eddie Vedder a household name, the Pearl Jam frontman set out on an intimate solo tour playing some of his band’s back catalogue with several covers thrown in for good measure. Through his European tour, Vedder’s fans were treated to a slow-paced evening playing theatres and arenas. Mat Burden, LD and the Pearl Jam family go back 27 years, with few crew that know Vedder better. TPi caught up with the LD on the final night of the tour, hosted in a stunning Greek theatre, Taormina, Sicily. Before boarding a flight, Burden gave an insight to his history with the artist: “I got involved with Pearl Jam back in 1996 when I worked as a Lighting Technician. After touring throughout 2006, I was eventually offered the stage manager role, one that I keep to this day. Then it was in 2012 when I was first offered to take on the role of LD for Eddie’s solo tours. He is a big believer in ‘keeping it in the family’.” Burden went onto explain the look that Vedder requested for his solo performances: “Eddie’s solo shows are much darker and utilise a lot more shadow than the typical Pearl Jam concert,” he explained. “Being such an intimate show has presented some challenges over the years especially when using in-house theatre gear, which isn’t always the most subtle.” Burden recalled the time a Floridian in-house theatre console went haywire, causing the entire rig to put out a show that would not have been out of place in an Iron Maiden concert during an intimate ukulele number. But now on Vedder’s production carries their own gear, and thankfully such issues remain in the past. Supplying the tour was Christie Lites, thanks to a relationship Burden has maintained since 2012. “Since becoming LD for this production, I have

always involved Christie Lites to some degree. Even in the early days when we were using house rigs, I still toured a star curtain console and smoke machines, both of which were provided by Christie,” Burden recalled. Back in the present, he continued: “For this campaign we did arenas for the first time so I wanted the consistency of touring a rig and a crew. With the recent opening of Christie Lites UK, it was perfect timing.” Burden specified 18 ETC Source Four Profiles, 24 PAR Cans, 8 ETC Fresnels 1k and 4 genereic 4-cells molefays. For the tour finale in Sicily, Burden made several additions to the rig including 12 Claypaky Mythos, 6 Claypaky Alpha Spot Profile 1500’s, 24 Robe 600 Washes as well as 8 extra 2-cell molefays and 4 x 4-cell molefays. Burden explained the additions: “We wanted to highlight the ruins and structure of the venue hence why we added so many moving lights. For that show I was able to push the lighting more than I had with previouly thanks to all the fantastic architecture behind Eddie. The ruins in the background produced a real standout look. I was especially impressed with the Claypaky Mythos which really highlighted the beauty of our surroundings.” Behind the desk, Burden outlined his main aim during performances: “I always try to get Eddie’s front profile as high and side on as I can. This means that his eyebrows can shade him a little. Again this changed slightly for the Sicily show as we were lighting him from behind with the Robe 600’s. I could push the PAR cans without him getting sunburnt!” While Vedder does have creative control for the show, Burden was able to sprinkle some of his own ideas within the design. “I pitched the idea of having an ‘outdoors’ section when he plays Into the Wild. During the song we bring out the star curtain and a theatrical campfire of my own creation. 12

EDDIE VEDDER

Opposite: Eddie Vedder on his final date of his European tour in Sicily. Below: LD Mat Burden ensuring nutrition is at the top of the priority list on tour; For the European run, lighting was supplied by Christie Lites UK; For the final date Burden used an Avolites Pearl Expert console.

It’s a very effective part of the show as it is the only major change. On the whole my role is to accompany - not distract from - the music so I try not to go overboard. During the show we start off kind of black and white, dimly lit from one side, very theatrical. Colour is introduced halfway through and the last few songs are super bright with house lights on.” For FOH control, Christie Lites provided Burden with an ETC 90 Expression console, which has become a mainstay in the LD’s rider. “It never crashes and has plenty of faders”, Burden said. “The only exception was for Sicily where we used an Avolites Pearl Expert desk. It satisfied my one requirement; lots of faders!”

After the enchanting night in Taormina, and the end of the European tour, Vedder and the rest of his crew headed back to the States for some well-deserved rest before another tour begins in September. Burden gave his concluding thoughts on the crew’s summer jaunt: “This tour has been amazing and the shows seemed to just get better each night. I also have to give my thanks to Christie Lites’ Roy Hunt and Andy Mitchinson who took great care of us in Europe.” TPi Photos: Jim Bennett of the Photo Bakery. https://pearljam.com www.christielites.com

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EVENT FOCUS

JUSTIN BIEBER

Opposite: Capital Sound deployed a full Outline GTO system for Justin Bieber’s performance at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.

CAPITAL SOUND AND OUTLINE WITH JUSTIN BIEBER As part of the pop superstar’s extensive Purpose tour, Justin Bieber entertained his contingent of Welsh fans in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium with the aid of London-based audio specialist, Capital Sound. To ensure the Beliebers got the best show possible, Capital rolled out a complete Outline GTO system.

Having started his Purpose tour back in March of last year, both Justin Bieber and his crew have certainly racked up the air miles entertaining crowds the world over. For the singer’s 2017 summer schedule, the Bieber touring party paid a visit to the UK for two headline performances - BST Hyde Park in London and Cardiff, Wales for a show in the Principality Stadium. With this being the later stages of the Purpose campaign, the crew were travelling with a lighter tour package than previous UK outings (see TPi’s December 2016 cover story). To fulfil the show’s audio requirements, Capital Sound were contracted to provide a complete PA package. With the prestige of the event, the London-based audio specialist decided it would be the perfect environment to show the capabilities of one of its newer PA offerings, the Outline GTO system. Capital Sound announced a sizable investment in the Outline PA back in January of last year, making it one of the major suppliers of the system in the UK. Over a year later and with the positive response the company has had to the system, the timing seemed right for the GTO to be used for a major international touring act. On the Cardiff show floor was Robin Conway, Capital Sound’s Project Manager. He summed up the response the Outline system has received since the investment: “We have had the Outline system in stock now for about 18 months and so far it has been really well-received. It’s an excellent loudspeaker option. The boxes have also been designed in such a way that makes them incredibly easy to fly. This is one of the larger shows we have brought it out on and we look forward to many more in the future.”

Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Perreux represented Outline on the ground at the Cardiff show. Sporting some of the best facial hair in the industry, the audio technician recalled how he was first brought into the production: “I have been on the road for almost 27 years working with various companies in the industry, but currently I work on behalf of Outline handling their biggest tours.” Vinnie went onto explain why this particular show was special for Outline, adding: “The Outline GTO is still a new system compared to other competitors on the market. For this show we’ve specified the GTO as our main hang with the GTO C-12’s for out delays. You don’t often get to see the complete GTO family of loudspeakers out in force. But it’s a configuration we want to see in the future. It’s still early days for the system but getting it in front of the right engineers will hopefully build its reputation.” Bieber’s production took on the Outline system largely because of the working relationship Vinnie had formed with FOH Engineer Ken ‘Pooch’ Van Druten. Vinne continued: “I have known Pooch for a few years and for this show I acted as a ‘go-between’ with production and Capital Sound. Earlier this year Pooch sent me through his rider request when I suggested using the Outline system. After a back and forth that took about 10 days he was happy for me to proceed with the PA design. He is a very meticulous engineer and really wanted to know all the specs of the system but was more than happy with the result.” Prior to the show, Pooch told TPi about some of the challenges the audio rider had to overcome. “People pay lots of money to see Justin Bieber so I want to make sure every seat in the venue sounds amazing,” 15

JUSTIN BIEBER

Audio System Tech, John Kaylor, Outline’s Fernando Rey Mendez, FOH Engineer Ken ‘Pooch’ Van Druten, Outline representative Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Perreux and Capital Sound Project Manager Robin Conway.

Pooch began. “I put lots of pressure on my systems engineer and PA C-12’s with 3 Mantas 28’s on the underhang. The ground subs consisted of designers to make sure that it sounds the same in the ‘nosebleed’ seats as 18 DBS18-2’s with 24 GTO SUBs flown. Finally, for in and out fills, a total of 12 it does at FOH. One of the difficulties is the 150ft centre thrust, complete Mantas 28’s were deployed with 8 LIPF-082’S for front fills. “One of the main with automation, that puts Justin 80ft in the air. All of these factors make it advantages to the Outline system is the consistency in quality it can bring difficult to have a live microphone in front of the PA.” from all sizes of shows,” stated Vinnie. “No matter the size of venue you can Pooch laid out the demands he made of Vinnie prior to the performance: guarantee the quality that GTO family will deliver.” “In the design we asked Vinnie to work on making Powering Capital’s Outline rig was a selection sure he covered all around the thrust, but not of Powersoft amplifiers. Conway explained: “We squirt energy on the thrust, thereby making have the Powersoft K10’s driving the mains and feedback issues. It’s a difficult thing to accomplish side hangs with the X8’s for the flown subs as well and he did a great job. Originally the speaker as the in, out and front fills. We also had K10/20’s design was based on the roof of the stadium drive the ground subs. Every single amp was being open. The day before the show we found visible on the Capital Sound Digital Drive System out it would be closed. Vinnie adjusted, and we control network and on the Powersoft Armonia had a great result!” Pro Audio Suite V10 app. This allowed complete After the show Pooch offered his thoughts system monitoring through the event at FOH. We on the system: “I have to admit, I had not heard at Capital have been big endorsers of Dante for the box prior to the show although my Systems some time now but this is the largest network I Engineer, John Kaylor, had some experience have ever put together. Once again it has proven with the system and thought it would be a good itself!” choice for the show. Even so, I really went out on Rounding off the gig, Pooch gave his final a limb on this one, but I’m glad I did as the result thoughts on the collaboration: “Capital Sound “I have to admit, I had not was very good. After using it I’m surprised it is not were very professional and organised. It was a heard the box prior to the show. pleasure to work with their team, and the team on more riders. The frequency response, vertical and horizontal coverage, and overall speaker at Outline. Vinnie was also very organised and I really went out on a limb on signature is competitive with all the other top line provided us with many drawings of predictive this one, but I’m glad I did as arrays out there. The only slight issues we had software plots and rigging that made us feel at during the day were due to the venue’s weight ease that we were going to be taken care of. Truly the result was very good. After restriction, we were unable to fly the subs in the a winning combination!” using it, I’m surprised it’s not on TPi way we would have liked. Having said that, it was still a great-sounding system!” Photos: James Cumpsty more riders.” The rig comprised of a main hang of 15 GTOs www.justinbiebermusic.com Ken ‘Pooch’ Van Druten, on each side with a further 15 for the side hangs www.capital-sound.co.uk FOH Engineer and three delay towers consisting of 15 GTO www.outline.it 16

SOUND WITH PURPOSE

Justin Bieber live at Cardiff Principality Stadium with from Capital Sound WHEN FREEDOM OF CHOICE MEANS NO COMPROMISE CAPITAL SOUND HIRE LTD | ABACUS HOUSE, 60 WEIR ROAD, LONDON SW19 8UG +44 (0)20 8944 6777 | INFO@CAPITAL-SOUND.CO.UK | CAPITAL-SOUND.CO.UK

JUSTIN BIEBER 1.indd 1

08/06/2017 17:10

EVENT FOCUS

SOUND OF SUCCESS AT SCARBOROUGH OPEN AIR THEATRE First opened in 1932, Scarborough’s Open Air Theatre is the largest of its type in Europe and, following a £3.5m refurbishment in 2010, it’s a venue that is most certainly on the up.

Way back in 1932, Merrie England was the first production to be staged at the Scarborough Open Air Theatre. Back then performances took place on a stage that was located on an island in the middle of the lake. Much has changed since then and following a £3.5m investment from Scarborough Council in 2010 the venue is now a major player in the global touring calendar, attracting artists from The Beach Boys to Little Mix. Built on the site of Scarborough’s Hodgson’s Slack, the theatre takes advantage of a natural amphitheatre and features 5,454 permanent fixed seats. Understanding its potential for growth, the council owned venue teamed up with Cuffe & Taylor, one of the UK’s fastest-growing promoters, in 2016 to help the venue flourish. Stuart Clark, Open Air Theatre’s Venue Manager, explained: “We started working with Cuffe & Taylor in this current relationship in 2016 and they’ve brought in acts we had talked to in the past but hadn’t been able to bring here because we didn’t have the production capabilities or they were out of our budget. “Over the last few years we’ve taken the venue to a level that we wouldn’t have been able to on our own. I had a conversation with Peter Taylor, of Cuffe & Taylor who said they would be interested in booking the acts for the venue, which for us was a sensible thing to do because we were

limited in what we could do, and Cuffe & Taylor had a much bigger reach. This summer we’ve increased the number of events in the concert series to 14 shows, and they’ve also helped us take the bold move to put the decking over the lake, enabling us to increase the capacity with flat seating and bring the artists and audience closer. “We worked a couple of times with Status Quo and while they raved about the venue they did mention the gap between them and the fans and that’s where the decking has made all the difference.” It’s not just the decking that has helped enhance the venue, with some of the events industry’s most prestigious suppliers on board the production offering to incoming artists is now better than ever. One such supplier is Symphotech, which began working with the venue in 2017 to help ensure the premises licence conditions were adhered to and give the local council confidence that organisers were ensuring minimum disruption to local residents. Clark continued: “One of the conditions of the venue licence is carrying out noise monitoring. We’ve always carried it out in the past but the difference this year is that in January we went to Planning and Licensing as we wanted to extend the number of shows. Previously this venue had only held 12 shows a year and for us that was quite restrictive as we wanted to take the venue forward, so we put in an application to extend the number 18

SCARBOROUGH OPEN AIR

Opposite and below: Scarborough Council has recently joined forces with Cuffe & Taylor, one of the UK’s fastest-growing promoters, in 2016 to help the venue flourish bringing in high-profile acts including The Charlatans and the Beach Boys.

of shows to 30. We can now have 20 in the main part of the season, between April and September, and then 10 out of season. One of the conditions of being granted permission to do that was to carry out more noise monitoring to protect the local residents, and we called in Symphotech to handle that for us. “Symphotech have worked with Cuffe & Taylor before as well as working with a number of outdoor venues including York Racecourse. The working relationship with Cuffe & Taylor was important because when we spoke to Symphotech’s Julian Spear he knew a lot of the FOH guys already, so it was a logical step to take.” A team of two noise consultants attended each event, with one stationed at the FOH and one based at a number of monitoring locations around the local area, where the levels were monitored. The reports were fed back to Adlib’s Sound Engineer, Mario Leal, who took action if the levels were looking like they were going to be exceeded. Symphotech’s Event Safety and Noise Consultant Ian Taylor explained: “We were contracted by Scarborough Borough Council as the event organiser for the Open Air Theatre, and have worked very closely with the licensing team and the environmental protection team, specifically the environmental health officers, who look to deal with public nuisance from noise, and thus far we’ve had a very successful year with no complaints to either the environmental health team and to the venue themselves. “We monitor three locations outside the site, all within half a mile radius of the venue and then we take an order of priority for monitoring to ensure that the most sensitive location for each event is the one we focus the attention on most. As the site is a natural bowl, the sound is projected across the top of the audience and because its concrete, it does offer some resonance which sends the sound back in the opposite direction and amplifies it upwards as it leaves the amphitheatre which is where some of the noise sensitive locations we are looking at are. “This week for the series of five events we’re trialling a system in partnership with NTI Audio UK, whereby we are implementing a system of remote monitoring where we have a metre at a fixed location continuously recording sound levels, both ambient background and concert levels, which feeds back via a data server to any internet-enabled device. So as well as monitoring it ourselves, we can provide a link to anybody who needs it such as the event organisers, the promoters, the sound team. We’re also using two NTI XL 2 sound level metres which we use at the FOH and sensitive locations around the perimeter of the site. “In line with the noise council code of practice Taylor works generically to an LAEQ 15 minute reading, which is a loudness level A weighted, and equalised over 15 minutes that gives him an average of that period. “We can then with the NTI XL 2m, we can have full oversight of any other measurements we want to take such as 5 seconds readings, 10 minute. This enables us to analyse the frequencies to identify which ones might cause problems,” concluded Taylor. Symphotech worked closely with Adlib, who installed a clever PA design to give the sound engineers lots of control over the system. The team flew line arrays above the audience which offered the ability to reduce sound levels on individual array boxes rather than having to take the whole level down.

Adlib’s FOH System Tech and Audio Crew Chief, Mario Leal, commented: “We’ve loved providing the audio for Scarborough Open Air Theatre. We have an in-house rig, which consists of 9 L-Acoustics KARA +4SB18’s flown each side, and we have brought loads more KARA boxes to stack up to reinforce the system. The main ground stack is 6 L-Acoustics KARA each side, with 4 extra ARCS. The side stacks consist of two SB28’s, one SB18 and four KARA each side. We also have four L-Acoustics KIVAs for front fills, which are in-house, and 12 L-Acoustics amps LA12X and LA8’s. “We supply and install the PA and bring our in-house console for supports,” commented Leal. “We look after all the support acts, so I will be mixing these from FOH, however we also bring microphones, consoles to spec, and if they require any outboard we bring this in as well. This week we have DiGiCo SD10 at FOH, that’s the in-house console and the console that both UB40 and George Benson requested. We have a Yamaha CL5 for monitors, we also have a small console which is like a shout system used to run extra lines such as house music, presenter microphones and for the FOH system we’re using a Lake control rack with two LM44’s and two LM26’s. “The guys at Symphotech have been great and really easy to work with. It takes some pressure off our shoulders having someone who can speak directly to the FOH and the fact their team is completely independent and knowledgeable is fantastic. They’re doing a great job.” In 2015, Cuffe & Taylor signed a five-year agreement to host 12 shows a year at the North Yorkshire Theatre, which was previously run in-house by the local council. With its help, and with the help from prestigious incoming suppliers, the venue is flourishing and this year witnessed over 70,000 sales for the season, with 55% of tickets being purchased by people from outside the area. Jason Cotillard, Commercial Director of Cuffe & Taylor commented: “Over the last few years Scarborough Open Air Theatre has become a place where people are excited to play, it’s a great venue for bands to add onto their touring schedule. With the calibre of artists that we’re now attracting, it’s a concert series that offers something for everyone, which allows as many people as possible to experience the wonders of the venue.” Clark continued: “I’ve lived here all my life and can remember when they were holding small shows here and when the seats were just wooden boards. It’s totally different now and is a great venue and a real bonus for Scarborough… we genuinely cannot wait to see what the next few years bring.” This July, it was announced that Live Nation is to take over the operation of Scarborough’s Open Air Theatre from its subsidiary, Cuffe & Taylor, and build on the success of the venue. This partnership will help the venue to flourish further with Live Nation requesting to work with the council on providing a permanent standing area in front of the stage, which would increase the theatre’s capacity and enable it to benefit from increased revenue and prestigious acts. TPi Photos: Plaster Communications www.cuffeandtaylor.com www.symphotech.co.uk www.adlib.co.uk

PRODUCTION PROFILE

ADELE: THE FINALE 18 months on from the full production TPi exclusive in arenas, Kel Murray revisits Adele’s touring and creative crew, who went on to design and build a truly in the round stadium tour. Beginning in Australia in March, the tour ended in the UK this July and Wembley Stadium played host to the final show in all its technical, breathtaking glory.

Four months after seeing the final Australian show of the Adele Live 2017 tour at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium, TPi was met by Production Manager Richard Young at Wembley Stadium, on what would be - albeit unknown at the time - the last of the singer’s stadium performances due to fears over her voice becoming irreversibly strained. This is a tour unlike any other currently on the road, perhaps unlike anything seen since the 80s / 90s even. The reasoning behind it? To give something back to the 1.5 million fans who bought tickets to the show. “Adele is such an amazing performer that we wanted to produce something very special for her. As an artist, you definitely need confidence to sell all those tickets - and she did it!” said Young. The concept for the in-the-round performances began in Australia, specifically designed as a way to satisfy as many of her Australian fans as possible; the seldom touring star had yet to perform live in the region before this run began. The opening in Perth broke records with 65,000 tickets sold for a single night. Young explained the background to this unique production: “Adele is very social media savvy. She could see there was a real demand for her to go to Australia so we had a lot of discussions about how we could best meet that demand. We decided that stadiums, rather than arenas, would be the best way to move forward. On average, arenas hold around 16,000 people but we were dealing with much higher numbers than that. We had to create a show that enabled as many of her fans to experience her in concert as we possibly could. “The most important aspects of the show were that she would be able to interact with her fans, and that the sound quality would be the same for every seat in the house. I began by asking our Systems Engineer, Ulf [Oeckel] and FOH Engineer Dave [Bracey] what the ideal placement of 21

ADELE

speakers would be if we were to play in stadiums. I said forget everything else, what’s the ideal scenario? Ulf came back with some very precise drawings and told me “right in the middle of the stadium, 25m high, in a configuration of 8 line arrays.” Then I took that idea to Roger Barrett at Star Events and asked if he could build a structure that could house that type of sound design. Of course, Roger being as enthusiastic as he is, he said yes straight away! He came up with a structure design that meant we could get the speakers in Ulf’s preferred configuration. I took this to management and said to guarantee the best audio quality throughout the stadium, we would have to play in the round. Truly in the round; no delays, not an end-on show, but a pure in the round stadium tour. The sound would come from her, and every fan would experience that equally.”

roof was that we didn’t yet have a lighting design or a video solution, so we were in an unusual situation. When I spoke to our Show Designer Es Devlin and Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffe about what they wanted to do design-wise, we didn’t have any answers as to what they could do, as we didn’t physically have the structure made yet! We had complete freedom to set the parameters ourselves, but at times that was frustrating as we’d never done what we were doing before. It’s definitely the most complicated design I’ve been involved with.” He continued: “When you play in the round there’s no backstage area, so where do you put the amplifiers and the lighting dimmers? Flying dimmer dollies have been done before, but we took it that step further here by pre-wiring everything and placing it into 2 shipping containers that would be rigged above the performance area. So when we turned up ready, we’d simply open the doors and connect any pre-wired cables we needed. I believe this design will give people new ideas of what is achievable when you have a clear goal you have to meet for the look and sound of a show. There was no compromise here but we had to think outside of the box,” he added. “It was also decided that to be economically sound, we needed to leap frog the stages too, so we needed two building. We played 6 venues in Australia & New Zealand, and each stage would do 3 venues each but we only had one set of production crew to do all of the shows. It was a test in a lot of ways! “When I was hired in June 2015 - before a single seat was put on sale - I was also able to have an input into how we priced seating. Things that normally would involve a promoter, didn’t here. I stuck my neck out, and assumed full responsibility if anything was to go wrong. On many levels, this tour has pushed me to the next level of production management.” The complete team comprised production crew from Mojo Barriers (pitch) & eps (inside the stadium), Star Events, TAIT, McGuinness Trucking, Neg Earth Lights - supported by PRG Australia - CT, Black Box Audio, Stage

PRODUCTION DEISGN With the initial basis of the design agreed, Young contracted Star Events to build the unique high rise structure. He continued: “Once we’d set the parameter of needing the speakers to be flown 25m in the air, we set to work around it. Roger came up with the idea that he’d base the new design on Star’s VerTech stage system but with new, updated, component parts. As we were only going to be doing 15 stadium shows worldwide - taking in Australia, New Zealand and the UK - we didn’t have an endless budget but knowing Star could then put the other pieces back into its rental stock for future use worked well. Once we’d agreed that approach, we had to work out the weight the structure could take on the top, get rid of the storm bracing, and find a way to avoid the legs at the bottom being tied together. So unlike a lot of other staging systems, we could get the audience right up close and maintain the intimacy she wanted. This was quite interesting because traditionally you’d have a big separation between the stage, the barricade and the audience but our VIP ticket holders would essentially be right next to her. “The other tricky thing to work out with regards to the weight in the 22

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ADELE

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stage concept - which had been in use since The Stone Roses in 1990 - into an updated model. It’s an inspired show design!” The other big task was being able to build the stages in time for the rehearsals that took place in Phoenix, Arizona, in January. “We shipped it to New York and drove it across the country during the Christmas period, which was interesting! We split the manufacturing between our facilities in the UK and China, which meant that some of our equipment had been on four continents before anybody got to see Adele perform under it! I think most of what Richard set out to do was to be expected from a big concert production such as this, but one thing that came out of left field was the decision to put the VIP section that surrounded the stage right under the main structure. That’s the first time we’ve ever dealt with an audience who’d have over 60 tonnes of stage production hanging directly above them. “This production is a perfect example of what you get when you have a production manager who completely understands every aspect of a show. He had a bunch of contractors who are all experts in what they do, but above and beyond any show I’ve ever worked on, here each department helped each other in any and every way they could. This really was a huge team effort, out in force. “Every single bit of equipment - lighting, video, audio - was all load-celled. Everything had to go up in a particular sequence, and it was all monitored meticulously. The first system was test built ahead of production rehearsals in Phoenix but we had no chance to do that with the second system – half the containers arrived in Australia from the UK and half from China and we built it for the very first time under tour conditions I’ve never been as relieved in my whole life as I was when I saw our second system standing!” he laughed. “We’ve demonstrated that this system can tour safety, and it’s become something of real interest for these huge, in-the-round shows, all around the world.” Load Cell Rental provided a wired 5-tonne, 16-cell system to monitor

STAR STAGING Star Events designed and built the two completely new stages to enable a a genuine 360 degree layout. Required to suspend over 40 tonnes of audio and containers at 25m before starting on the rest of the extensive production install, Young approached Star Events for a solution from the planned upgrade to its VerTech system. Star had four months to develop and ship the stages to Australia. Badged VerTech Ultra, the new components are dimensionally compatible with existing VerTech parts, but the configuration for the Adele stadium tour is totally unique. An 8-spoked grid, with PA cantilevers on each, is free-standing on just four 100-tonne capacity Ultra towers, with no ties between them at ground level and no storm bracing anywhere within audience sight lines. Every conceivable element of the stage build and production rigging is monitored by systems supplied by Load Cell Rental. “Star Events rose to the challenge with enthusiasm and some great solutions,” said Young. “The fact that this is on just four legs, that are not tied together, has enabled us to get people as close to Adele as possible, maxing out the capacity on the floor and creating and breaking attendance records all over Australia. The ultimate ground support!” Star Events’ special projects director, Roger Barrett, said: “It has been a huge privilege to be trusted with enabling this record-breaking tour to happen. We looked hard at the few previous in-the-round stadium shows and tried to learn from them, we are delighted with the end result. “Once this tour is over we will be using the new Ultra components to upgrade our existing VerTech festival stages so that we can always say yes to whatever weights our clients want to fly.” As unusual as the tall, in the round structure request was, it also afforded Star Events the opportunity to create something brand new, as Barrett explained: “We’d been wondering how to take our original VerTech 24

ADELE

the weight on the towers during construction of the stage. The system was monitored throughout the installation process to ensure loadings stayed within limits. A total of 4 5-tonne cells were located in each of the four stage towers and used to monitor the weights on the motors during construction period of the stage, the raising of the roof to trim height, and during the load-in of the technical production equipment. Load Cell Rental’s Colin Luke commented: “This task was carried out to ensure that each motor in the tower stayed within its limits, and the weights were accurately distributed across the four motors in each tower.” Load Cell Rental also provided a 40-cell wireless Broadweigh system to monitor the loadings on each lighting and audio point during the load-in and load-out. Chris Tinsley, who project managed the Load Cell Rental install, monitored the weights of every structure as they were taken to trim, ensuring that all limits were maintained for each point. This was vital, as the weight distribution across the structure had to remain perfectly balanced at all times. Additionally, Tinsley remained on site to provide load monitoring in the event of any adverse weather conditions.

layout that promises the safety and security of both the artist and the audience, and therefore contributing to an unforgettable experience for the hometown fans at Adele’s stadium shows. “The whole production included state of the art technology, and the circular layout chosen for these venues required a new concept of having the audience move in and out of the inner circle during the show. “Since the artist was moving around the circular runway during the performance and therefore the focal point for the audience was not static, sections of the barricade circles needed to be shut and re-opened constantly. This ensured the best protection for the artist while also suppling sufficient escape paths for the audience of the inner circle, should any type of emergency situation arise. Our thanks go out to Richard Young and Liam Wheatley for the great cooperation in this world class production.” REDUCING RISK A huge task with a show of this size, is health & safety procedures. Health & Safety Coordinator, Andrew Lennie, returned to the stadium shows on behalf of promoter, ITB. “It was a natural progression to use my services at the Wembley shows as I already had an in-depth knowledge of how this production worked,” he noted. The new design however, meant Lennie wasn’t just working closely with Young and the sound, lighting, video, rigging and power crews, his biggest task was the new staging element. “There was a lot to consider here, including that the stage would fit within the CDM 2015 guidelines, and of course, all the usual method statements and risk assessments. Having the H&S documentation ready and then having meetings with the staff at Wembley stadium to show it met all of the lawful criteria needed, was critical.” Lennie joined the stadium show rehearsals in January, prior to the Australian debut, to ensure the H&S standards would be globally assured. The physical staging factors aside, a key thing he had to consider was the

SAFETY BARRIERS The show comprised a 360 degree build of GIGS barriers and numerous elements fabricated specially for the tour. Project Manager for the tour, Nigel Gilbert said: “We built special gates, corner pieces and back steps [an elevated security walkway behind the stage barricade] for the tour, which were introduced on the Australian leg. The back steps gave Adele the chance to get closer to her fans. The special gates allowed the crowd to get in and out of the 360 degree stage circle. We also used 250m of cable protection with special, very flat ramps - to guarantee the best possible access for trucks, cranes, fork lifts, cases, dollies, carts and the audience.” Sebastian Tobie, eps’ Director of Global Operations, added: “We were very delighted and proud to be given the task to design a barricade

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ADELE

sheer volume of people attending the event, as he explained: “What we always need to assess on shows like this is egress calculations. We have to somehow assume and reassure the venue that the figures that we’ve come up with, are in fact correct. We have to look at factors such as the audience demographic. As you can imagine, for 94,000 people in an crowd as varied as Adele’s, that can be tricky! “We also have a huge amount of personnel working under the CDM 2015 regulations, and even for a venue like Wembley, these concerts are a notable event in their calendar. There are lot of considerations to factor in for the crew as well, such as people working at height, given the amount of technology we have in the roof area - this show is slightly different to anything else that’s ever been here. We’ve reached and exceeded the capacity of any concert shows on consecutive nights, anywhere in the UK.” Lennie also attended a lot of emergency planning meetings, primarily for counter terrorism purposes given recent events. “I’m pleased to say it’s all gone very smoothly and this production has been a well-crafted success, on every level,” he concluded.

Annette Robinson ITB Promotor Rep, Clive Ambler, and ITB Site Crew Chief Simon ‘Chopper’ Wallis also worked closely with Wood who cited their expertise as invaluable. SET DESIGN TAIT was contacted after the initial show and staging design had been completed and was tasked with building the centre stage platform with lightbox top, LED sides, and an entrance lift. “There needed to be an outer revolve for the band to spin around the centre riser, ensuring that at all times, the stage looked clean and the band were kept discreet,” said TAIT Project Manager Aaron Siebert. A total of 4 spoke runways and an outer ring of decking was also specified. Further along in the design process, automated motors for the video wall and lighting trusses for show opening were factored in, complete with mirror cladding panels for the roof’s legs. “The roof structure and spacing dictated what was needed from us with the space available. Initially it was the centre riser with the revolve and 4 lifts in the outer circle but as the process progressed, the mirror panels were added and the lifts were replaced with the spoke runways and outer ring which allowed better access to the audience outside of the pits. The stage was plywood, and finished with an anti-slip treatment; as with any outdoor show, the performer’s safety is of the utmost concern. We also added some LED edging to help define the edges of the outer ring.” The 285m of Firefly FloppyFlex LED neon lining surrounded the walkways of the performance platform. Siebert continued: “The design process took about 2 months as details were finalised. There was a lot of coordination between all vendors and Richard Young to fit everything together. Then the build itself took another 2 months to complete. A project of this size included a multitude of people working on it from TAIT including Brock Mearig, Project Designer; Andrew Wallace, Technical Lead; Menno van Wetten, controls Integrator, Marc Salemi, Mechanical Integrator. We also owe a lot of the success to the automation and carpentry teams that took the gear out and really made the show happen every day.” AUDIO EXCELLENCE Systems Tech Ulf Oeckel was, as mentioned previously, the first port of call when designing this show. He told TPi: “I wanted to create a large point source system in the round for both acoustic and optical reasons. I designed the rig myself - at this point Dave trusted me! Richard gave us all the tools we needed to make the design happen, and we had a great chance to design the audio at a very early stage in this production. There’s

COMPRESSED BUILD SCHEDULE ISSUES TPi Award-winning Keith Wood of Production Solutions was also working on behalf of ITB in the role of Event Site Co-ordinator. He told TPi: “There were a few challenges with this show. The timing of Adele’s shows at Wembley meant we had to follow ELO’s production load out, so we had just 2 ‘steel’ days to build our stage, hang rigging and load in the entire production. We were faced with 24hr and overnight shifts in order to get the show in on time. After talking with ELO’s Promoter, Andrew Craig at Live Nation, he understood our position. Later on he consulted with ELO’s Production Manager, Chris Vaughan, who very kindly agreed to allow the Star Events team and the cranes to come on site and start the steel build in centre of pitch the morning after ELO’s show. They were loading out at the West end of the venue, and at the same time, Adele’s rig was loading in at the East! After the steel team did a 12hr shift, the rigging team started hanging points overnight. Day 2 was the second steel day build to get roof up, followed by a full overnight load-in with the full production, ready for Adele to rehearse that afternoon. “The limited build days also resulted in a number of various departments having dedicated rigging teams who worked simultaneously in the roof. We retained the services of Andy Smith of ITB’s safety team, solely to control who had access to the roof gantry and to manage inductions and procedures for the rope rescue teams.” UK Tour Promoter, 26

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System Designer Ulf Oeckel with FOH Engineer Dave Bracey; Star Events’ Roger Barrett; Monitor Engineer, Joe Campbell.

not a single speaker or any other audio infrastructure placed on floor for this design. This was a big part of the overall clean appearance on the stage.” That may not sound out of this world, but when you consider that Oeckel’s L-Acoustics design comprised 144 boxes of K1, 48 K2’s, 32 KSB subs and 16 KARAs, it’s kind of a big deal… “The system is arranged in 8 hangs, each comprising 18 boxes of K1 and 6 boxes of K2 around the stage, flown in equal distances on the squared ground support. A sub cluster, arranged from 4 columns of 8 KSBs on a custom-made fly frame was flown in the centre. A VIP area system was also arranged with 4 hangs, each consisting of 4 KARAs covering the inner ring VIP area. The system was driven by 124 LA8’s / LA12Xs which were placed in one of the bespoke sea containers in the roof.” The container included the entire infrastructure of amplifiers, distribution, power and motor control. The outdoor shows for Oeckel’s design didn’t require any new tools, he simply relied on his trusted favourites. “I don’t use anything extraordinary except the world’s best speakers, which had to prove their capabilities. We achieved throwing distances of 120m on high elevations of up to 60m in the larger stadiums. The way they performed was surprising even to myself! “It’s worth mentioning that the performance of the LA12X which drives both the subwoofers and the K1’s in a rather extraordinary way… the impulse and power of it is very impressive to me. And the KSB sub performs with such a natural but powerful sound, it’s great to work with.” Another key highlight for Oeckel was working with Moovecat’s wireless motor control system, which allowed “great freedom to operate the PA in such large-scale installations”. “I hadn’t seen a stadium filled with nearly 100,000 people before, hearing just one source system. Thanks to the large walkway around the stage we could consider this as two separate audiences and so we treated them as such when it came to regarding their audio coverage. A problem we faced was that we had VIP seats just 3m away from the band, and on the other hand we had a large-scale system flown 25m above them in the air. Thank God for the accuracy of L-Acoustics! We were able to split the coverage areas and I was able to find a delay offset for the subwoofers and the ‘big guns’ to match with the zero delayed VIP KARA systems.

“My fly guys Bob Bolaender, Björn Boernecke and Detlef Maler worked brilliantly in handling over 30 tonnes of flown audio rig. I had the perfect support team from them and from Black Box Music to put this system together,” he concluded. Topping the big 3 audio hitters - L-Acoustics, DiGiCo and Sennheiser little else has changed for the teams at FOH and monitors. FOH Engineer Dave Bracey continued his reign on a DiGiCo SD7. He gave his thoughts on the stadium design: “The arena tour was an end-on design with an ‘inthe-round’ element. This led to a genuine in-the-round show. It was quite tricky to scale up; shows in the round and stadium shows each have their own challenges, so when you put the two together it becomes somewhat interesting! “One of the things that happens in these large scale shows in the round is that everywhere you’re firing to, there is a potential reflective surface you’re hitting square on. Imposing the sound design first meant that we had no excuses. Ulf did a really great job with this design; I’ve been really impressed by how the whole thing has panned out. It’s fine for us to say we want 8 hangs of PA flown 25m high in a circle, but it’s the staging company and the riggers’ job to figure out how to make it all happen. I actually think the end result sounds better than the arena tour did.” Sitting behind his SD7, Bracey continued: “The desk set up was pretty perfect, so I haven’t changed anything. The only thing that’s new is my Bricasti reverb - it’s my new favourite reverb - but apart from that, my SD7 is performing just as you’d expect for a show like this - I’ve had zero problems and it’s a pleasure to work on.” Bracey does have a lower channel count than on the arena production as there’s no acoustics or brass section. “My channel count has actually halved. For my mix on the outdoors shows, it’s become more streamlined so pairing it all back was the real adjustment I had to make.” Straight back into the in-ear hot seat is Joe Campbell, a fine figue of a bearded Mancunian who’s been with the singer since her very early touring days. When TPi met Campbell at the start of this campaign, he was new to the DiGiCo family, having only recently started touring with the manufacturer. 15 months later and his thoughts remained the same: “Choosing the DiGiCo SD7 for Adele’s monitor console was a real game 28

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changer for me; it opened up a whole range of possibilities for us. The console itself is surprisingly easy to use for such a devilishly complex piece of equipment. It’s flexibility meant I could change the input and output configuration at very short notice to accommodate extra musicians and their requirements easily. “I use a lot of onboard effects, perhaps 14 reverbs and 2 mono delays and the only outboard effect is a TC Electronic M6000 for vocal reverb. It’s a lovely sounding product… I actually don’t leave home without it!” he smiled. Campbell also uses an Optocore Optical Fibre Network, which meant the positioning of the monitor department gained further flexibility. He continued: “A far from being in my ‘usual’ monitor position - on or under the stage - I mixed the monitors for the stadium shows from a room inside the stadium. In New Zealand the monitor mix position was actually outside the stadium in a portacabin! This did raise a few eyebrows; sometimes I had trouble convincing the local crew that the monitor desk really was being set up that far from the stage and that, yes, I really was going to mix the gig from out there! “The main advantage in being so far away was that I couldn’t hear the PA, so I had no delay to deal with, but I did have a nice, quiet environment in which to work. Comms, in this situation, were king. We have quite a complex shout system, which meant I could speak to any of the crew or musicians individually through in-ears or shout speakers - and I could see them all too!” The vocal microphone remained as the Sennheiser Digital 9000 Series and the RF team utilised the Sennheiser 2050 IEM units. BEAUTIFULLY LIT Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffe & Associate Lighting Designer & Director, Roland Greil of Woodroffe Bassett Design had the task of ensuring the show came to life visually, primarily during the opening daylight hours. With world class Show Designer Es Devlin having exquisitely executed a classic sense of glamour to the arena tour, the creative maestro brought

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ADELE

a similar look into the stadium show, this time with a curved, 360 degree video screen showing a mix of Hollywood worthy visual content and live audience feeds. Woodroffe told TPi: “We had a real sense of what the show was about; the colour, or lack thereof, and how Adele wanted to be presented. “During the last production, we had a very beautiful background to work with, and we were simply changing the lighting cues from number to number, which worked very well. But the technicalities of doing a show in the round was, actually, incredibly complicated; we had to completely re-think it and build a different set of pictures. In the end, the big bonus for us was that her audience became a huge part of the show. In Australia especially, they were great - they were so excited and animated that the screens looked quite beautiful!” Essentially, the dynamic of the lighting was done around the dynamic of the screen content. Directing the tour lighting was Greil, who reprogrammed all the cue lists from the last show. Greil said: “By the time we got to Australia, the lighting show was 80% of what we’d finalised back in Phoenix. The challenge there was that we’d been rehearsing with a roof but when we got to Australia, we were battling with daylight.” Woodroffe continued: “Adele’s show is very perfect in terms of the sound quality, she’s an incredibly accurate performer, and so the way it looks also had to be as perfect as possible. Our biggest obstacle certainly was the daylight. When needed, we went back through the cues and removed the colour to whitelight it. Then when it gets darker, you start to introduce the colour and it adds to the show the way you had intended. Her show is very much white light show anyway… It’s a very satisfying show to watch.” Operating from his trusted MA Lighting grandMA2 console, Greil was working with similar workhorse fixtures as seen on the arena tour. He furthered: “We tried to keep the same fixtures so that we could continue the looks. When you’re dealing with audience trusses 25m in the air, you need fixtures that will pack a punch. The only big change is that we added a lot of old school molefays to light the audience. A singer always wants to interact with their audience, so this aspect was important.” Woodroffe added: “The old molefays have a truly fantastic colour temperature which give a lovely warm glow. It’s classic tungsten and it works wonders in concerts like this,” Woodroffe added. “It fits perfectly with the beautiful content from Es.”

Greil noted: “When you’re playing for over 90,000 people, as well as the show needing to remain elegant, you also need the uptempo parts too. The big effects are still needed to compliment such a big show, and so the big fireworks on the structure of the stage really set it all off for the finale.” The lighting fixtures consisted of 104 Robe BMFLs, 88 Claypaky Mythos, 100 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Washes, 80 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX and 40 Martin by Harman MAC Aura XBs. Generic fixtures comprised 2-Lite (120), 4-lite (111) and 8-lite (48) molefays. 4 Robert Juliat Lancelot 4k Spots were also utilised. The entire lighting setup runs on a fully redundant network system with robust Luminex network equipment. Luke Radin, Head Network Lighting Technician, has relied on two MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles that are linked to 5 NPU processors by 11 Ethernet-DMX8 nodes, 11 GigaCore 16Xt pre-configured Ethernet switches and 5 unmanaged truss mounted switches by Luminex Network Intelligence to set-up the gantry system. Everything is connected over a trunked quad core fibre ring to cover any distance. “Redundancy and reliability is very important for us and Luminex equipment gives us exactly that certainty we need,” said Radin. “Their switches and nodes are rock solid, extremely powerful and have never let us down in the middle of a show. On top of that, the Gigacore switches are very easy to install. Everything is pre-configured in the warehouse and we just have to plug all the cables, set some groups (VLANs) and we’re up and running. This also give us a lot of flexibility to do quick changes to the set-up or change something during rehearsals.” In September, Luminex will release its very first managed AV switch designed to be mounted in the truss: the GigaCore 10. Additional to the core lighting set up, Neg Earth was supplement by PRG Australia, which leapfrogged the second audience lighting system. AN ARTISTIC VIDEO SOLUTION Just as the 25 arena tour benefitted from the beautiful artistic direction of Production Designer Es Devlin, the stadium tour didn’t disappoint. From the storytelling visuals to the classic glamour that’s now synonymous with an Adele concert, the visual aspects for the eager fans had to deliver. In video world, Creative Technology (CT) once again took up the reigns to translate the singer’s emotive songs to her mammoth live audiences. The LED consisted of CT’s own lightweight Glux Carbon 10mm screen 30

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and comprises an eyewatering 744 tiles. CT Project Manager, Jim Liddiard, told TPi: “Weighing just 11kg per square metre, it’s ideal for such a large display. The structure itself was custom made by Acass Systems, whom we worked very closely with to create the bespoke metal work and tile locks that allowed us to hold the radius of the screen without compromising the pixel spacing. “Signal transport to and from stage was taken care of via a MediorNet system. This allowed us to handle multiple video signals, comms and networks over 3 Quadcon fibres. The inner drum was clad with flexible Roe Linx 9mm to hold the right radius.” Again, like the arena tour, the screens were fed via CT’s VYV Photon media servers. Continued Liddiard: “They delivered seamless 360 degree timecoded content and all effects were driven from the Photon’s powerful internal effects engine, providing versatile looks with minimal latency between the cameras and the screen.” VYV’s General Manager, Eric Palnte added: “This show’s imagery is quite refined and delicate; it’s one of those contexts where uncompressed media really makes a difference. It is also a nice showcase of our effects system at work on live video. CT really did a great job with our technology and we’re rather proud of the result!” In total, there were 9 cameras including a wireless RF camera provided and operated by John Clarke. Liddiard continued: “Again, control and signal for the RF camera were dealt with via the MediorNet system. Around each leg of the main structure were four outdoor plasma screens allowing the VIPs to see the artist on screen when she was out of physical view. These were all individually controlled by a custom piece of software, written by CT’s software development manager Stuart Turbefield, allowing them to be switched on the fly dependant on Adele’s stage position. As the Adele’s Monitor Engineer, Joe Campbell, was 300m away from the stage, we also provided some QBall PTZ cameras allowing him line of sight to backline at all times. Due to the complexities of playing in the round we also provided eight Antrica CCTV cameras, sending quad splits of the stage to underworld, monitors, video director, automation and the LD - giving everyone a clear view of the inner and outer stage.” Liddiard concluded: “This project was a pleasure to work on, allowing us to use technology not always associated with music touring. The process and planning from production has been meticulous, allowing us to come in and do our bit on this large scale project with ease.”

extend the intimate energy of the show to record breaking audiences across the world. There were 3 key moments during which Quantum supplied special effects. Sweetest Devotion saw the first effect of the show; a vibrant halo of coloured powder confetti. Using 80 stadium shots positioned around the perimeter of the orbit stage a total of 160kg of yellow, green, purple and red confetti was released into the air in 4 rounds of 20. The effect was a total departure from the monochrome visuals of the previous arena show and provided a fresh experience for the audience that complimented the jubilant mood of the performance. Set Fire to the Rain did away with the indoor rain system used on the arena tour, instead opting for 80 CO2 jets, which lined the edge of the stage. Fired in a combination of short and long duration hits, the jets either circled the stage in a tidal wave or shot up all at once to emphasise the emotive highs of the track. Rolling in the Deep was the finale for Quantum, when the specilaist returned with the much-loved confetti, personalised with printed handwritten notes and lyrics from Adele herself. For the stadium tour, the crew doubled the amount of Q: Stormblasters. The units were engineered specifically for the Adele arena tour in 2016 to provide a whole minute of consistent confetti coverage with the ability to be stationed both on the ground and above the audiences so that confetti could reach further across each venue. For the stadium tour, 12 were stationed on top of the main stage and 12 positioned on trusses within the audience, with 240kg of confetti being released each show for the penultimate track. Meanwhile in London, Titanium Fireworks was contracted to supply the pyrotechnics at the finale concert. As this was the finale, the Wembley shows required a little extra sparkle. As well as the 70 second pyro sequence fired from the top of the stage truss, the proposal was to fire a 35 second sequence each night from the famous Wembley arch to be synchronised with the stage pyrotechnics. This is the first time a firework installation of this size and duration has been rigged and fired from the arch of Wembley Stadium. Titanium had to deliver 4 identical 35 second sequences, given there was not the time to reload between shows all four sequences were rigged in advance. A bespoke rigging solution was required to attach 2,000 single shot effects to 38 positions on the arch, rigging to the structure also required a specialist team of our working at height pyrotechnicians together with level 3 IRATA rope access climbers from Hollandia, the company that built the Wembley stadium roof and arch. A crew of 6 worked over 5 days to install the pyro and 2km of cable to network the 38 field modules. The technical delivery of synchronising 38 positions from the arch and 24 stage positions was achieved using two FireOne XL4 control panels, timecode was delivered to the main pyrotechnics control located on the

SPECIAL EFFECTS & EXTRA SPARKLE Having supplied the tour with two bespoke effects in 2016, Quantum was asked to supply 3 special effect moments for the 2017 stadium tour. The effects needed to take full advantage of the round stage and be able to 31

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The Creative Technology Video Team; The video system they built for montior world; Health & Safety Expert, Andrew Lennie; Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffee with Associate Lighting Designer & Director, Roland Greil; Event Site Co-Ordinator, Keith Wood with Simon ‘Chopper’ Wallis’, ITB Site Crew Chief.

field of play where the stage pyro was fired from, a transmitter broadcast the timecode from this location to the panel located on the roof of the stadium, which controlled the arch. The entire 70-second sequence was fired using FireOne’s Ultrafire software to achieve split second synchronisation with the soundtrack. Darryl Fleming who project manged the pyrotechnic element of the show on behalf of Titanium Fireworks said: “It was a privilege to be involved in such a unique event, the challenges of rigging from the arch and stage co-ordinating so many effects across multiple locations was technically very challenging, the two days of heavy rain for the load-in also hampered our install, but the hard work and anxiety was paid off with two amazing shows, the end result was well worth the wait!”

room. The weight load rating of the roof is only 90kg per square metre, so essentially a well-built man is pushing limit! To get around this, Power Logistics constructed a landing pad for the stillages, to evenly distribute the weight, once they were craned into position. Each stillage had a maximum weight loading of 280kg due to the delicate nature of the roof. This was all carried out of the first day of the build. As the powerlock had to also run from an area behind the north and south catwalks, further scaffolding structures were erected to allow the Power Logistics team to install cabling from the roof level to the catwalks. Once all the cabling was installed on the roof and rigged onto the scaffolding towers that met up with the catwalks in the internal roof of the stadium then Power Logistics installed two 400A powerlock feeds on each of these catwalks. In this case, the cabling was brought up from ground level via a winch, in flight cases. Commenting on the install, Power Logistics’ Project Manager Ami Cowee said: “This was certainly not your average show power install. To give you some idea of its scale, in total, from end to end, the powerlock run for the audience lighting alone was 6,500m. Everything was time critical and the help of the venue’s structural engineers, event technical management team, in-house scaffolders and Hollandia’s riggers, who were all an absolute dream to work with, was invaluable.” With the finale 2 shows of the Wembley finale being cancelled due to health reasons, one last question was put to Production Manger Richard Young: will she be back? The answer? Well, you may have guessed… “This is in debate at the moment. At the time of going to print, it has to be a ‘no comment’ from me!” TPi Show & build photos courtesy of In The Bag http://adele.com www.black-box-music.de/en www.powerlog.co.uk www.stareventsltd.com www.taittowers.com www.itb.co.uk www.negearth.com www.eps.net/en/ www.mojobarriers.com www.knightrigging.co.uk www.stagemiracles.com www.loadcellrental.com www.ct-group.com www.mcguinness.eu www.q-sfx.com www.titaniumfireworks.com www.soundmoves.com www.esdevlin.com www.patrickwoodroffe.com www.inthebag.pro

PERFECT PRODUCTION POWER The power requirements for the Adele tour were as you would expect for a large-scale production, both extensive and challenging. Power Logistics installed six 500kVA generators, which worked in tandem with an 800A house supply to power the stage via eight 400A powerlock feeds. These were running from a generator compound, located outside the stadium. All eight powerlock feeds ran across the pitch via cable ramp to the stage located in the centre. In addition, three 500kVA generators supplied the power required for the audience lighting, rigged in the roof, delivered by four 400A powerlock feeds. The feeds had to finish at the stage catwalks which was where the challenging element of the job presented itself. The generators for the audience lighting feeds were located in a building site, which had recently been sold to developers, underneath the base of Wembley’s famous arch. It was also 15m below the arch, therefore cabling had to be rigged along a hand rail and the powerlock dropped down into the compound. These powerlocks then met cable runs that were fed down through the arch. To carry out the install, Power Logistics had to work closely with riggers from Hollandia. Several Riggers from Hollandia abseiled down the arch with each individual powerlock cable, with two members of Power Logistics coordinating the install from the roof level, and two members of Power Logistics’ crew waited on the ground to catch the cable and rig at high level to a scaffolding structure above the public concourse using scissor lifts. At the top of the arch the cabling then ran across the roof. For this area, all of Power Logistics distribution and cabling equipment had to be craned onto the roof as the only the only access is via a small hatch in a plant 32

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

HANS ZIMMER With a total of 55 musicians on stage, surround sound and a holistic approach to show visuals, the composer’s first world tour certainly wasn’t short of ambition. TPi’s Ste Durham made the trip down to the SSE Arena, Wembley, to witness the musical spectacular in all its glory.

You may think you aren’t familiar with the music of Frankfurt-born composer Hans Zimmer, but it’s almost certain that you have seen at least one of the 100+ films he has scored over the past few decades. You may even, much like an umnamed technical production journalist, shed a single, manly tear at one or two of them. While Zimmer is quite rightly celebrated for his film compositions, he is less recognised as a touring musician. Although he is perhaps more experienced than you might have thought [see below], it wasn’t until 2011 that he and his huge collection of expert musicians performed his compositions live for the first time. This was also when Zimmer first worked with Production Director Jim Baggott, for what was ostensibly a one-off live performance of the soundtrack for Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda 2, at Althorpe stately home. He began: “Hans used to be in bands in the ‘70s and ‘80s, most famously The Buggles on their hit, Video Killed The Radio Star, but has become such an established film composer since then that he hasn’t had chance to really do it again. He was telling Harvey Goldsmith and Steven Kofsky, the show’s co-producers, over dinner the night before the show that it was time to get out of the studio, a dark windowless room. So we found a small space in his schedule to do the first Hans Zimmer Revealed at the Hammersmith Apollo Theatre, which set the format, and was a great success despite it only being only two shows.” Rather than just playing the score from a single film, Zimmer’s first full tour features numerous pieces from across the composer’s back catalogue, from Crimson Tide and Wonder Woman to Inception and Gladiator. Baggott continued: “Early last year we started looking at dates and the uptake was amazing; playing arenas to sold out audiences. This year we upgraded the design and content and now we are doing in excess of 60 shows all over the world. It’s certainly been an interesting journey but we’ve

refined it into an extremely strong show by this point.” To accompany Zimmer on this tour, he and his team assembled a core band comprised of some of the planet’s best musicians, including cellist Tina Guo and guitarist Guthrie Govan, as well as a rotating system of regional choirs and classical ensembles, and legendary guest performers such as Manchester’s own Johnny Marr and the voice of The Lion King, Lebo M. All told there was up to 55 musicians on stage per night, a factor that influenced both the practicalities and possibilities of the production. Baggott explained: “The concept of Revealed has remained to an extent, but with all those people on stage you have to have a riser systems in place so everyone is seen. We need the sightlines to show off all of these musicians and, in doing so, the intricacies of music itself. That said, it’s not what you’d expect from a composer or orchestral event - it’s almost equal parts classical, rock and electronic show.” The complex 10-truck production required a tight knit network of suppliers, many of which were chosen due to their long-standing association with Baggott himself. He explained: “A lot of my choices were simply due to established relationships, first and foremost of which was Britannia Row, who I’ve worked with for 15 years. I have a good relationship with Brian, Lez and rest of guys, and this job is so complex from an audio standpoint that you need a rock solid team. We also kept core people like Colin Pink and Gui [Guillaume Burguez] from the original shows. Hans feels very happy with the guys.” He continued: “I’ve also worked with PRG XL Video, Fly By Nite, and Beat The Street for many years. They’ve all been fantastic, as usual, and are always keen to get stuck in. For video we went with VER as they had good options for us on LED for us and their reputation is great. The set from 35

HANS ZIMMER

Above: While the core band tours the world with Zimmer, the choir and orchestra were region-specific.

TAIT, although a fairly simple one, is fantastic. We used more traditional risers last year but wanted something slick and fast to accommodate the extensive touring. The catering from Snakatak has been top notch as well.” With the new production came new faces. Technical Production Manager Chris Coffie began his stint with the Hans Zimmer crew in January, initially working with Baggott to help finalise logistical details with the upcoming venues before the tour began. He said: “I talk to our lead driver, Simon, and decide the order that the trucks will dump in. This is quite often dictated by whether the venue has a house stage or space for our rolling deck. “The set is generally built with lighting and rigging, while the two TAIT Austrian curtain reveals are lined up across the fronts of the risers. One is located just behind Hans to reveal touring band, and the next covers the choir and orchestra behind that.” Coffie continued: “The TAIT system goes together so quickly and easily that we needed way less carpenters than before, even though the venues are the same size, not to mention the fact that the reveals are simpler. Stefan Krista calls the show, takes care of safety with local musicians and makes sure the bands are coordinated. “It’s a lot of people to corral for him and the audio guys have a lot on their plate as well. The great thing is that everyone knows what needs to be done and the whole show is automated really well.”

made up of five keys players who will double up on guitar or something else, a drummer, timpani, two percussionists, two violinists, a cello, a double bass, an electric bass, a woodwind player, and two dedicated guitarists. We then add a 16-piece choir and a 19-piece string and brass section. “To add a another level of complication we also have a dual Pro Tools rig for playback of special effects and other layers, controlled via QLab, which basically serves as our master show control.” As you can imagine with that amount of inputs, keeping track of each musician and layer is a task in itself. Pink continued: “It all comes down to the layout of the desk. I group everything by type - keys on a layer, guitars on a layer, and so on - so it is much easier to hear an issue if and when it arises and quickly rectify it.” He continued: “The great thing about the SD7 is you have 12 faders in central panel and 12 above it, meaning everything is within easy reach. Add some logical grouping on a song-by-song basis you can begin to manage it quite easily. My theatre background helped with that, because I kind of treated it like a musical. In that world you’re always moving the vocals that you need in front of you, and for this I was just moving important instruments. Hans tends to use about 30 layers to make a sound and you learn quickly what those component layers are for each song so you can put them within reach.” The next tier of complexity came from the fact that the show was presented in surround sound surround, as Pink explained: “It is a challenge but it’s a great tool because you can make things big as opposed to loud! You can keep the level of the show reasonable and still keep it impactful and powerful, which is always my preferred style, especially on this tour.” When it came to approaching the surround component, Pink’s theatre experience again paid dividends. He explained: “In theatre it’s used extensively, more for manipulating the size and feel of the show rather than for specific effects. Part one of this show is more traditional, so the information going to the surround speakers is mostly used for widening the sound field. “Part two, which is more based on the superhero and sci-fi movies, allows me to use the surrounds for panning and spot effects. I think it works well in an arena format to fill out the sound. It’s more full and warm and means you don’t have to bombard everyone from the front.” The PA system specified was a Clair CO-12. At Wembley Arena the crew opted to use 16 boxes per side as a main left and right hang, with another 12 per side for side hangs. A total of 12 Clair CP-218 subwoofers were flown behind the main system, 6 per side, with another 12 arranged as a ribbon line across the downstage edge. The surround system consisted of a supplementary 8 CO-12 per side.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? As you would expect with such an ambitious musical endeavour, the audio crew were pushed to their limits. Surround sound, dual monitor desks and a silent stage were just some of the unconventional aspects that this rock ‘n’ roll crew had to take in their stride. Renowned FOH Engineer Colin Pink did his best to translate his complex duties into layman: “The mix of the show basically evolved through rehearsals. Hans is very open to his music evolving in its own right from the film scores, so we’re not necessarily replicating them live in the same way each night. He has also worked many of the films into interesting medleys, which frees him up to try different orchestral things. That process helps build a foundation for the sound of the show.” Pink had a DiGiCo SD7 at FOH while Monitor Engineer Gavin Tempany had another at the side of stage. This was supplemented by a DiGiCo SD11, operated by Audio Crew Chief Jimmy Nicholson, that was used to sub-mix monitors for the choir and orchestra. All three of the consoles ran on the same Optocore fibre loop. Pink continued: “One of the most interesting things about this gig is the sheer amount of inputs; all told there’s in excess of 250. The core band is 36

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HANS ZIMMER

Above: Virtuoso cellist Tina Guo; Video and lighting combined to provide a holistic visual backdrop.

Pink gave his appraisal: “I think the system is working really well. Sergiy [Zhytnikov, System Tech] has done a lot of work on it and Clair have been very responsive to our input, helping to facilitate any changes to the system. At the beginning of the tour we played big theatres with in-house systems, then Coachella, then New Zealand and Australia before heading to Europe, all with different systems. “It’s very rare you get to do the same show on loads of systems at once, so it’s been a great way of finding out what works best. The CO-12 works brilliantly in an arena situation. Clair are very happy with what we’ve done and it’s working very well for the show.” While the core band tours the world with Zimmer, the choir and orchestras are region-specific. Pink explained the process: “We send them the music so they can practise together before joining up with us. On their first day they have an early call prior to regular soundcheck to rehearse with us, which is where we can make any tweaks and Jimmy can start to look after their mixes on the SD11. Again we group them section-by-section, but on wired in-ears. Fundamentally they want to hear the same things so its more a case of tweaking gains for individual players and singers.” Another relative oddity of the Hans Zimmer show’s audio setup was the achievement of an almost silent stage, thanks to every musician being on IEM, the guitarists using Kemper digital amplifiers, and any percussion being screened as much as possible to reduce bleed on stage. Pink said: “The choir are on Shure headset microphones, which are working very well, and everything is close-miked to reduce spill. This does mean the monitor guys have a lot of inputs to deal with from a processing point of view, just as we do, but we can get the desks to do as much of the boring work as possible so we are free to listen and mix.” The FOH Engineer made heavy use of automated snapshots, set to timecode, so he was free to pay attention to the finer details. While some songs required only one snapshot, some of the show’s longer medleys featured big mix changes within them.

the stage tech Gui, who is on a push-to-talk radio. We do have 12 talk-back mics up there but they don’t get too much traffic. With such a large number of musicians it’s just a case of rolling with the punches - some I haven’t had one request from in 40 days and some its 10 things every soundcheck, though never anything too terrible! “Hans isn’t really used to playing live so his mix is the closest to an FOH mix you’re likely to see, perhaps with the click and his instrument slightly above it. You’d expect that’s what most of them would want but it’s so random sometimes,” Tempany laughed. “We were very lucky to do 10 or so days’ rehearsal with the core band members,” he continued. “Day one at rehearsals was a bit of trial and error and very quick but I do FOH and a lot of high-channel monitor gigs so it’s nothing too unfamiliar. You kind of get known for it, which is a blessing and a curse I suppose - sometimes you find yourself praying for a three-piece punk band!” Although Tempany was well versed in this kind of gig, some of the core band, including Zimmer himself, were not accustomed to such large (and loud) crowds. He commented: “Coachella was obviously a big one but we gave them a bit of a warning of what the show might be like and they managed to mellow out and really enjoy it. A festival or arena is just so different to an auditorium or an arena that it can throw you off but these guys are the ultimate professionals.” The band used Sennheiser IEM and Shure Axient microphones, though almost every musician used a different brand of earpiece. Crew Chief Nicholson chuckled: “It almost doesn’t matter what we’re wearing because there’s such variation. We’ve got everything out there from Ultimate Ears, to Jerry Harvey Audio, to 64 Audio - it’s like they all went in-ear shopping together and each decided to try a different brand! I think a lot of them got their kit on different gigs and a some of them weren’t touring musicians before. It’s a situation where someone’s in-ear cable breaks and you have to give them something different in its place; Hans is the only person who has anything resembling a spare set of ears.” The last time Nicholson was featured in the pages of TPi he was manning a Midas PRO2 at FOH for a single musician on stage, namely 21st Century one-man-band, Jack Garratt. While that wasn’t exactly a walk in the park [see TPi Issue 209], this time he certainly had his hands, and his DiGiCo SD11, full. Well... almost. “With 57 inputs the SD11 isn’t quite maxed out, but all available busses have been used, with nine stereos, including what would normally be the left/right master buss, eight stereo groups and eight mono IEM feeds that go to a headphone out distribution system for the choir on the stage,” said Nicholson. “The SD11’s Control Group Faders and Control Aux Sends have made the orchestra headphone mixes easy - when a member of the choir asks for more of a particular section, rather than cuing their mix and pushing up all four horn faders, for example, the Control Group means moving just one fader - and Macros give me the ability to solo all output busses for the stems, as well as the tracks that come from FOH, so that I can hear what the mix will sound like once it is summed.

NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES As Pink mentioned, this was a three-console job, and one that needed crew who could hit the ground running despite having not been involved with the original shows. Band Monitor Engineer, Gavin Tempany, explained: “The previous engineer has done a lot of the legwork, which has helped a great deal, and the nature of the job itself basically meant it had to be DiGiCo nothing else could have dealt with so many ins and outs on MADI in such a manageable way. “The SD7’s at FOH and monitors were just part of the gig from day one and have handled the job very, very well. We are running both of them to the absolute limit, and it’s the same story with Jimmy’s SD11 for the orchestra and choir. We’re not just taking inputs from stage racks, but stems between consoles on an Optocore loop as well, which is a really neat solution. Even with this there are still four fibres between FOH and the stage.” The Monitor Engineer elaborated on his duties: “I basically treat it like a massive rock band. I can’t see Hans from where I am and I can’t really do 22 talk-back mics so it’s a lot of work in rehearsals and close contact with 38

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HANS ZIMMER

Above: Sergiy Zytnikov, System Tech; Monitor Engineer Gavin Tempany and Audio Crew Chief Jimmy Nicholson; FOH Tech Simon Sayer and FOH Engineer Colin Pink; Fly By Nite catered for the tour’s trucking requirements.

“It’s nice to be able to programme it all and helps a lot with the fact that there are only 12 faders and multiple layers,” he added. “The fibre loop is a great help, too. It means that everything’s done internally. It would be a much messier gig if we didn’t have that and there’s much less to go wrong.” Nicholson continued: “Lez Dwight from Brit Row said this is the biggest crew they have sent out on a tour. It’s a shedload of inputs and it has to happen fast but the roles are well parcelled out. It’s pretty full-on when you have four shows in a row like we do at the moment; not psychically but in the way that you have to stay focussed and always make sure that you dot the Is and cross the Ts. We’re dealing with some very famous people, but they haven’t necessarily done a lot of this before and are nervous sometimes. We try to do a lot of keeping everything calm and, whatever they want, making it happen.” Tempany added: “The first couple of weeks were busy and productive but it’s calmed down now and I’ve got them trained - they’re used to a certain level of mediocrity by now! “The audio truck unloads at 9am and we soundcheck at 2pm - in between that we have 180 mics, surround sound, 8 hangs of PA, subs, and a stage that has to roll. I’d say to anyone good luck with that! Fortunately we’ve all worked together a lot and know each other’s strengths. When I joined Brit Row and they told me it was like a family I took it with a pinch of salt but it’s true. You really do get to work with people you know have got your back. We can handle anything and there has not been even a disagreement in our crew, which is miraculous given it’s my fortieth day at the console.” The audio crew was completed by FOH Tech, Simon Sayer, and RF Tech, Josh Thomas.

to see these performers you want to see them rather than being blinded by a bunch of lights!” The rig itself was a relatively simple one in terms of the fixtures selected, with a row of 28 Claypaky Sharpy Wash 330Ws on the rear truss, 16 Claypaky Alpha Profile 1500’s in the middle, and 110 PRG Best Boy Spot HPs doing the majority of the heavy lifting. Juengling continued: “We also have close to 50 TMB Solaris Flares on the floor for strobes and wash uplighting. We wanted consistency throughout the visual aspect of the show, particularly in the big, bold looks. It wasn’t necessary to have a Noah’s Ark of lights up there when I can achieve what I need to with this rig.” PRG XL Video also supplied MDG fog and haze machines and a combination of half tonne and one tonne CM hoists, as well as 3 of its proprietary GroundControl followspot controllers. The stage and rigging department also benefited from Load Cell Rental’s safety knowledge. He continued: “Both Marc and myself come from a theatre background and that lends itself really well to this kind of show. We always try to light the music, though we’ve toned it down a little bit during the course of the tour. For example, we might highlight the horns if they’re playing a certain part and back down on the cellos. It’s not accenting solos as such, but emphasising certain aspects of the music for the audience that can be hard to discern otherwise.” The entire lighting rig was pixel mapped and ran to timecode with a few manual triggers for certain moments. This was controlled alongside the video element on a pair of MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles. Juengling added: “We wanted consistency throughout the visual aspect of the show, particularly in the big, bold looks. It wasn’t necessary to have a Noah’s Ark of lights up there when I can achieve what I need to with this rig.” As is common practice in modern day concert touring, the video element of the production was a major factor in dictating the look of the show. Although the original event in Hammersmith saw projection mapping on the walls of the venue and a church organ set piece behind the choir, the setup was adapted to make it easily tourable, as Juengling explained: “We’ve added the video wall to make the look of the show more diverse, and modified the projection so it is more like an extension of the LED. It is also another tool we can use to light the performers.” All of the video content was song-specific but drew the line at actually

HOIST THE COLOURS Lighting Director Dietrich Juengling was involved in the show’s first iteration in Hammersmith with Marc Brickman, for which he wrote all the cues. He explained: “It’s changed a bit since the beginning in terms of fixture types, but it’s conceptually the same show. It’s lit very theatrically - we don’t shine any lights out into the audience and there are no air graphics. Essentially we are here to light the performers, which an important issue that is missing from a lot of shows these days. If you’ve paid all this money 40

CONGRATULATIONS TO HANS ZIMMER ON A SUCCESSFUL 2017 WORLD TOUR!

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HANS ZIMMER

Above: Lighting Director Dietrich Juengling; Production Director Jim Baggott; Video Crew Chief Ian Haywood; Technical Production Manager Chris Coffie; Beat The Street was tasked with getting the crew from venue to venue.

including clips from the films themselves. “I think that would have been a little too cheesy,” chuckled Juengling. “We also have no IMAG as Mark can’t stand it. We don’t really need it in these venues and it would detract from the way the way the content and stage look together. It’s more holistic without it and it allows you to look at the show as a whole.” The main upstage LED wall measured 63ft wide x 27.5ft high and was made up of 188 tiles of Winvision Air 9mm, masked into a ‘half moon’ shape. The screen, along with the projection mapping, was driven by a pair of d3 Technologies 4x4pro media servers with VFC HDSDI output cards installed. The content for the wall was rendered at 2048 x 896 pixels and was fed to the wall via 2 HDSDI 1920 x 1080i 50Hz lines. Video Crew Chief, Ian Haywood, explained: “The trickiest part of our gig is the stage projection. We have 3D content that maps to the three tiers of band risers. With all of the backline gear on stage we can’t actually see the floor of it properly to line the projectors up or map the content to the risers. We use 8 Barco HDF 30k projectors, configured into four stacks of two to cover the width of the stage, which are all running hot and with each ‘double stack’ being needed to cover a particular portion of the stage. It’s a couple of hours of work to get it right every day. This is first day lead we’ve had, which has made everything much easier.” While there were indeed no IMAG screens or camera PPU, the team shot close ups of the principle musicians in advance to use as ‘artificial IMAG’ on the upstage wall. Thanks to the timecode and intelligent camerawork, this technique syncs up perfectly with the performances on stage and effectively gave the crew the best of both worlds when it came to the show visuals. Haywood explained: “It was all shot in LA at a studio but it works in a way that you can’t tell how or where it was shot. The shots are so close and there’s so little background that the audience have no reason to suspect it isn’t live. Even when we’ve had to use IMAG, like at the stadium in Hamburg, it still looks amazing.” He continued: “If we had a PPU I would also have had to ask for different lighting from the guys so that’s another bonus.” Although more accustomed to working on shows for superstars like Jay-Z and Rihanna, Haywood was relishing the time spent outside of his comfort zone. He concluded: “It definitely does feel more theatre than rock ‘n’ roll, but the first time you hear the full band playing those powerful

songs it really does make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. To be honest, I still get that sometimes now. It’s a great show and it’s surreal to see how the audience react to it. People love the soundtracks to these films and the reception has been incredible.” The video crew was completed by Media Server Tech Ken Delvo, Projectionist Bjorn Parry, and LED Tech Fionn Finnie. NOW WE ARE FREE It’s an unorthodox performance for sure; the orchestra follows a teleprompter rather than a conductor, the infamous Buggles tune makes an appearance, and Zimmer repeatedly regales the audience with behindthe-scenes tales from some of modern cinema’s greatest works. Part ‘an evening with...’ part full-on rock show, the thousands-strong crowd in SSE Arena were enraptured from start to finish. Whether this is the emergence of a sleeping giant into the world of concert touring or a one-off that simply allows a venerated composer to look his admirers in the eye, the end product is a powerful and virtuosic evening of live music. All aspects of the production work together, both powerfully and subtlely, to accentuate the on-stage perfromance. The tour is currently visiting its last few cities in the US before reaching its climax. Followig this, and accounting for the fact that Zimmer has already added another blockbuster to his repertoire with Dunkirk, hopefully this is not the last we will see from the maestro and his all-stars. TPi Photos: J. Norppa, Joe Eley, Maria Zhytnikova & TPi www.hans-zimmer.com www.britanniarow.com www.clairglobal.com www.prg.com www.ver.com www.taittowers.com www.flybynite.co.uk www.beatthestreet.net www.loadcellrental.com www.snakatakcatering.com 42

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GUNS N’ ROSES LIVE TPi joined the thousands that flocked to London’s former Olympic Stadium to witness the reunion they said would never happen. Ste Durham was on site to meet the crew behind the jaw-dropping production.

It’s no exaggeration to say Guns N’ Roses (GN’R) have experienced something of a tumultuous career path since they exploded onto the US hard rock scene in 1986 with their still (quite rightly) lauded debut, Appetite for Destruction. Since then, as many of you will know, the only constant has been enigmatic frontman Axl Rose. Last year though, everything changed. Rose, along with iconic original guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan decided to re-unite and perform together for the first time in 23 years. This began with 6, one-off shows, before expanding into the worldwide Not In This Lifetime… Tour (named after Rose’s response to the question of a reunion in a 2012 interview). The long-awaited tour rolled into the capital in June in order to pack London Stadium, originally constructed to serve as the nerve centre of the 2012 Summer Olympics, to its rafters with fervent fans of the band, both young and old, for two consecutive nights.

Production Coordinator Debbie Taylor initially joined the crew for six reunion shows, before being retained upon the announcement of the 2016 US stadium run. The crew has since completed a South American and Australian / South East Asian leg. She commented: “To tell you the truth it was a dream come true to get the call to be involved in the reunion shows. I am a big GN’R fan and wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for the world. This is a large stadium rock show and we are playing a variety of indoor and outdoor stadiums and fields. In many ways it’s similar to other tours of the same size but we are moving a lot quicker between cities and continents, while taking the show to as many fans as possible.” The tour’s Production Office oversaw all aspects of the set up, tear down, movement and running of the show, balancing the preparation of work for future legs with the day-to-day logistics, all while working in a temporary office surrounded by loud music and multiple distractions. She continued: “Our main focus is to maintain a happy and healthy crew, which leads to a productive, enjoyable and safe work environment. Along with our Production Assistant, TJ Gordon, I also manage the office and any paperwork required such as hotels, flights and travel visas.” As well as keeping on top of the practical logistics of the tour and monitoring the crew’s physical health, Taylor is just as focussed on the mental wellbeing of her crewmembers. She said: “Managing multiple personality types, all working under

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Neg Earth and Upstaging provided lighting for the respective European and US legs of the tour, while Clair Global provided audio, Screenworks supplied video, and TAIT Towers fabricated the custom scenic elements seen on stage. On the logistics side of the tour, it was Beat The Street for bussing, Sound Moves for freight / shipping, and Transam Trucking for, you guessed it, trucking. 44

PRODUCTION PROFILE

intense pressure and with a lack of sleep is another big challenge for us. It’s so important to keep people’s morale up whenever they are homesick, tired or suffering from a lack of personal space and I ensure that I am around to do that whenever they need me.” On the crew themselves, Taylor commented: “We have a top notch crew; they really are the best of the best. They excel in their own fields while also being able to operate as a solid team. No department here takes precedence over another and our Production Manager Dale ‘Opie’ Skjerseth has led the way in creating a truly collaborative crew through empowerment, team work and mutual respect.” The production itself was rock ‘n’ roll to the core, despite embracing the proliferation and quality of video technology to the fullest with a number of gigantic LED walls. This imposing sight was augmented by an impressive custom stage deck and lighting rig, hundreds of pyrotechnic products and a sound system designed to make its mark on this already famous stadium.

Clark, Sound Engineer Caram Costanzo and Sound Crew Simon Bauer walked the room. Clark continued: “It’s a big difference from the old boxes for sure. We had i-5Ds with CP-218s on AC/DC in this venue and immediately you realise how much less you need to do with the CO-12. It’s about training yourself to think in a different way. “You can dig yourself a hole pretty quickly with old thinking and new equipment. The CO-12 is very responsive so the less I do to it, the better. If you learn the tricks and just trust the system you can achieve a lot with the EASE Focus programme and your ears.” To augment the main system, the crew rigged 10 CO-12 per side to each of the spot towers and 6 more on a pair of delay towers closer to the rear of the bowl. “We use Smaart to rough in delay times and then use our ears,” explained Clark. “To be honest, a lot of times we find that we’re turning them down. This room is very lively but everyone ultimately wants to come and hear a rock ‘n’ roll show. From that perspective I think we are doing great with this system at the moment.” Costanzo opted for an Avid S6L for main and backup at FOH, with Lake processing and “minimal” outboard gear. Clark continued: “In terms of mics everything is pretty standard, we have a lot of Shure SM57’s and some Sennheiser wireless gear, as well as a couple of more boutique pieces like Blue Bluebird SLs for drum overheads and some Stager ribbon mics for the guitar cabs. “As far I’m concerned it’s a rock ‘n’ roll show and we are kind of a plug in and play audio crew, which is perfect for that. This band has no playback, just barley a click, and are all about the feel of these songs. “The set changes night to night on what they’re feeling so for us it’s more about creating that excitement rather than getting into the real gear nerd kind of stuff. We are trying to recreate iconic tones that these fans know like the back of their hands. Whether it is a backing vocal, synth sound, or even an overdubbed whisper, people know these nuances and are even singing them, so they have to be present in the mix. We certainly are able to provide, largely due to a system that is incredibly intelligible but still knows how to rock!” It was also Avid at monitors, though this time a Profile, while Rose opted for Jerry Harvey Audio Roxanne IEMs, with no on-stage wedges. Monitor Engineer Jeremy Bolton commented: “The relationship between monitors

IT’S SO EASY A Clair Cohesion Series rig was chosen for the tour, based around substantial hangs of Clair CO-12. Sound Crew Chief, Tyson Clark, began: “The CO-12 is a completely different animal from the stuff we’ve had on previous tours but I find it to be very user friendly and extremely powerful. I’m surprised every day by what we’re getting out of it. Even though we’re in stadiums, we’re not running into any issues with coverage or power and it’s very responsive and intelligible, requiring minimal EQing. Most days we just rough in delay times from the previous show and slide in the EQ - it’s makes my life easier that’s for sure.” While we are definitely not qualified audio engineers here at TPi, I have no hesitation in vouching for the clout of this particular system, which, even at the very back of the vast, former Olympic venue, was devastatingly powerful. The main left and right hangs consisted of 20 boxes of CO-12, as did the side hangs, while the low end came from 6 CP-218’s per side in a cardioid configuration, and 6 more per side on the deck. Clark laughed: “It’s pretty crazy to go with 12 CP-218’s per side for a venue like this but they have a lot of output and are very musical.” The venue was modelled in 3D using AFMG EASE Focus software, before 45

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and FOH is crucial. We all work together to create the best audio possible for everyone. All the credit to Steve [Carter, Monitor Engineer] and Caram, they are great at what they do, and I try my best to support them. I’m just lucky to be here as I’m surrounded by an amazing group of people, the best of the best. This is an amazing experience and I just give 110% to help out where I can.”

as well as 30 Elation DTW Blinder 700 IPs. A total of 45 Martin by Harman Atomic 3000 LED strobes were rigged in the torms, over the stage and in the set, with the floor package being completed by 10 Robe Ponties, 18 GLP impression X4 Bar 10’s, and 4 TMB Solaris LED Flare Jr around drums. The 6 Robert Juliat 4k Lancelots situated at FOH were split between various band members throughout the night, with 2 specifically for Rose himself. Schilling said: “The spots themselves are mixed to mimic the colour temperature changes in video content. This is the case for the rest of the rig as well, with the colours basically interacting and complimenting each other, rather than working as two separate elements.” In total the flown aspect of the show weighed 50 tonnes, spread across 120 rigging points. Day-to-day, the process was overseen by Head Rigger Mike Ryder, who made use of CM motors and a Motion Labs control system. Ryder, who joined the crew in June 2016, commented: “On this tour, we have a production load-in day to set up so show days are used for any final touches and to double-check everything is in working order. Of course there are daily challenges when setting up any show and this one is no different. Luckily, we have a great crew and well-organised production team to minimise them.” Schilling continued: “Although it’s a rock ‘n’ roll show and there is no timecode to speak of, there are still around 3,500 button pushes for lighting alone so it’s no walk in the park! We have a lot of programmed songs and a set list each night but there are so many alternatives songs as well that they might play. I always have a couple of punt faders so if they pull one of those songs I know it’s time to crack my fingers and get creative! To be honest it’s a really fun way to work and it always gives me something to do.” The varying musical dynamics in GN’R’s back catalogue also provided a good balance of light and shade for the Lighting Director to play with each night, as he explained: “You get really fast moving songs that are ‘cue, cue, cue’, and then others where there’s 15 cues for the whole song and it’s very moody and arty. Those are the tracks you really have to pay attention to as

USE YOUR ILLUSION Lighting Director Ron Schilling was in control of the MA Lighting grandMA2 at London Stadium, working from a Phil Ealy show design that was initially programmed and run by Rob Koenig. The rig, provided by Neg Earth in Europe and Upstaging in the US, consisted of fixtures that were guaranteed to be readily available around the globe, bar 1 sea container of unique gear, particularly the so-called ‘hexpods’ - 7 pods of 19 GLP impression X4’s - which were custom fabricated by Upstaging. Schilling explained: “The hexpods are integral in show as they feature on pretty much every song for washes, highlights and so on. The X4’s are very versatile and their look is hard to duplicate.” The flown rig consisted of 3 curved trusses that followed the contours of the stage set below and included 33 Robe BMFL Spots for audience and stage washes, 3 Robe BMFL Blades doing key light for the 3 static members of the band - pianist / keyboardist Dizzy Reed, drummer Frank Ferrer, and keyboardist Melissa Reese - and 4 Robe WashBeams, as well as 9 Martin by Harman MAC II AirFXs. Schilling continued: “We also have torms upstage and either side of video screens that house 18 Robe WashBeams, and a total of 60 MAC Viper AirFXs in the air and on the floor for more audience light and aerials. We dedicate quite a bit of space on the rig to audience light, as GN’R are a very interactive band. I will always light the crowd the more they are into it.” To heighten this excitement for the crowd, there were also 36 Elation Professional CUEPIX Blinder WW4’s over the main stage and on the torms, 46

GUNS N’ ROSES

Above: The calm before the storm; Clair Cohesion Series rig was chosen for the tour; Head Rigger, Mike Ryder; Sound Crew Chief, Tyson Clark; Video Director Michael Duque.

the lighting is so specific to what they’re doing on stage.” As is par for the course on an outdoor summer show, London Stadium only succumbed to darkness two thirds of the way into GN’R’s set. With a wry smile, Schilling took something of a Zen approach to the whole situation: “No matter what you say or do, it’s still a stadium show on what was more or less the longest day of the year. We’re still here, we will still light the show and there’s nothing else you can do. Some people stamp around and curse the sun on these kinds of shows but it’s the nature of the beast - it’s certainly not a new problem so you just have to go with it!” He concluded: “There aren’t a whole lot of days off on this tour but the crew has been together for the better part of a decade so it’s usually quite relaxed, which is the way Opie always likes to keep it. At this point we are still working until December but you never hear the crew complaining. We’re well taken care of and we always do our job to the best of our ability.”

and everything is controlled from a Ross vision switcher. “Basically I set up all my triggers on the switch and play them at the appropriate time. We also have Sony HXC 100 and Grass Valley LDK-6000 cameras dotted around for live shots. We have a jib in the stage left pit run by Gabe Lopez and a stage right pit handheld run by Austin Smith, while the FOH main Axl shot is from a long lens Grass Valley camera operated by Jeremy Miget.” Duque continued: “Austin Smith runs the head-to-toe Axl camera, as well as fishing for other shots, and Mike Ryder runs another camera for Slash and other shots.” The camera operators who were given a degree of free rein were instructed to prioritise the principal members of the band, but also to highlight any of the other members who had solos or prominent parts of certain songs. Duque said: “Caram does a really good job of mixing the show, so I can always hear in my IEMs what I should be showing on screen. A major part of my job is to make sure the crowd see what they are hearing. For example, Live and Let Die is very active song on stage, so we split the screens to showcase everybody at the same time. Even after all this time it’s still a work in progress, so I can always rework shots and camera positions as I hear different things.” Although Duque has only been part of the crew since April 2016, he grew up as a fan of GN’R, giving him a great understanding of the musical nuances that Clarke had alluded to earlier in my time on site. “There were only a handful that I didn’t know before and it only takes a couple of shows to get them ingrained. I’m given a lot of creative freedom and I get a lot of input from audio guys, whose honesty really helps. I haven’t heard anything from the band yet, which can only be a good thing,” he laughed. “I like the organic feel of shooting this band,” Duque continued. “They don’t have set timing or marks on stage and we are always able to be original and do things on the fly. I used to do lights and I like to run my switcher almost like a lighting console. It keeps the cameramen fresh and

PATIENCE Schilling alluded to the heavy video presence on this tour, but Video Director Michael Duque was the man to talk through the system, which was provided by California-based Screenworks. “There’s basically a giant upstage wall, more LED behind the guitar cabs, on the stairs and on drum risers, as well as two huge screens on the wings. It’s definitely one of the more video-heavy tours I’ve done,” he commented. Co-creative Director Jeremy Leor and Dan Potter at Creative Works in London produced all the show’s video content. Duque continued: “Every song has something and we update that all the time. The content guys are working with me to figure out what I need and how to make it work for this system. If I have a problem, I try not to do any editing of content but I have done some. I prefer if it comes from them. This way they know how I need it next time. “All of the content is very abstract, with only a handful actually corresponding to the songs themselves. All are GN’R themed, and we’ll have some really subtle, moody stuff for the slower songs. We use Ross BlackStorm media servers, which are basically used as playback machines, 48

GUNS N’ ROSES

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on their toes as things aren’t exactly the same from show to show. “It also means that we can adapt to problems better; we lost our handheld yesterday but we scrambled and thought on our feet to sort it straight away. I love those crazy moments!” APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION To accentuate the gargantuan video and lighting presence on stage in the capital, the band also brought a healthy dose of pyrotechnics to the table. Pyro / Confetti crewmembers Jason Jones, Chris Davis, and Jack Kingry travelled with an A, B and C show to accommodate all shapes and sizes of stadiums across the globe. Quite surprisingly, given its massive dimensions, London Stadium necessitated the C show, primarily due to the deep overhanging roof that obstructed any behind-stage fireworks. 10-year GN’R veteran Jones explained: “The maximum height we can fire at in this stadium is 50ft, but we still have around 600 pieces of pyro and 6 flame units on stage. We try and make it a similar show whether it is the A, B or C rig. It basically just means that we have to be clever with angles and looks with the bigger products, and the finale is around 7 seconds shorter.” Despite this claim, Paradise City still feels like one of the longest pyrotechnic finales in recent memory. Combined with the frantic pace of the music and the sensory assault from lighting and video, it really is one of those moments when all you can do is turn to whoever is next to you and laugh as the madness engulfs you both. As enjoyable as this sounds, Jones was keen to illustrate how responsive his crew was to those two omnipresent letters. He said: “H&S changes venue to venue, city to city, and country to country, but we try our best to make everybody happy wherever we go. What we do seems dangerous to people who aren’t as informed so we try to make everyone aware of where everything is and limit access backstage so we don’t have people just wandering around who don’t know what’s what. Some of the pieces don’t look so obviously like a mortar tube and that could be dangerous. “On this run we’ve eliminated some of the close band stuff, but even when it was there the band have been great about it - they know the cues as well as I do!” PARADISE CITY Supplied and built by Stageco, the stage was a four-tower format construction measuring 26m wide and 22m high, using CAD drawings conceived by the company’s Bart Dekelver. To the sides of the stage, Stageco built canopy roofs for the PA and video wings, bringing the total width to 54m, whilst also constructing delay towers, various platforms and the front of house tower. When the band played London Stadium, it was essentially the same 12 trailers of staging used a fortnight earlier at the venue by Depeche Mode - a pattern repeated at other points during the tour - but reconfigured and rebranded during a brisk, one-day changover by a Stageco team headed by crew chief David Van Assche, taking over from Kevin De Meyer. Van Assche said: “We had a few extra hands and climbers, and our main job was to add 3m of downstage flooring and a thrust, while some rigging beam positions had to be moved to accommodate GN’R’s production design.” Site Co-ordinator Andy O’ Omilianowski, commented: “For me, the quick transition from Depeche Mode to GN’R wasn’t just about the stage and the stadium floor; I have the whole site to prepare including everything backstage, but we proved it can be done! It amounted to a very full day of work. A lot of detail goes into a transition like this and sometimes it can be as 49

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GUNS N’ ROSES

Above: The Stageco crew L-R: Giel Troubleyn, Toon Gielen, Jente De Puysseleyr, David Van Assche, Hans Ruijten and Niels Alens.; Pyro / confetti crewmembers Chris Davis, Jason Jones and Jack Kingry; Lighting Director Ron Schilling; Production Coordinator Debbie Taylor.

demanding as a three-day steel build when you’re working with your own equipment and you know what’s going in.” Due to Stageco’s extensive workload around the world, it has been normal for Omilianowski to work with numerous Stageco employees on GN’R’s world tour, from supervisors to drivers. “In fact, it’s rare that I travel with the same team for more than two or three shows,” he observed. “It’s a unique situation for a site co-ordinator to achieve a level of continuity with those conditions, but we always have a good advance plan and that really helps. I also reach out to the individual crew chiefs so that a lot of questions are answered before we meet, and I’ve been extremely happy with the consistency of their work. Stageco are the best in the world at what they do and I’ve been lucky to be provided with great staff to work with me, so I have the utmost respect for the company.” Head Carpenter Alex Blais became involved with the GN’R team when Rose first covered for AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson, who was advised to bow out in order to save his hearing, on the band’s world tour. Blais said: “We knew at the time the rumours of a GN’R tour were serious because we were all involved at different levels of advance work for the upcoming tour under Opie’s guidance as PM. “GN’R is an easy band to work for in general and their direct demands to me as Head Carpenter is what you would expect from anyone; a clean concert stage free of any hazards that could hinder their performance.” The stage deck is formed in a horseshoe that houses the numerous backline technicians and stands at 10ft at its highest. Blais continued: “There are also steps leading to the top of the horseshoe that are clad in LED and a thrust containing a mechanical lift. This is primarily used to raise a piano for song November Rain.” After months on the road, the crew’s average load-in time had been trimmed to between 6 and 8 hours, with load-outs clocking in at around two. Including the road crew, this setup required 23 people, all battling against the rain, heat, and wind endemic in a European summer. Blais added: “We also face a language barrier in some countries but a bit of made up sign language always seems to work!” Another aspect of bringing this show to Europe, and the UK in particular, was a different style of H&S compliance, which was taken in stride by Blais and the rest of the crew: “Health and safety is a major concern for all of us,” he said. “We take serious steps to ensure we provide a safe working environment for everyone and knowledge of our equipment is the key. Our crew is dedicated to their jobs and are fully aware of the nature of the

build, in order to guide stage hands. Anything that the UK’s H&S teams ask from us is usually common sense, so it does not really affect us to any great extent.” The Head Carpenter concluded: “This tour has been a smooth ride for most of us because everything is well-organised, starting at the top, and we avoid putting ourselves in precarious positions. Our team was designed for that very purpose: efficiency. Our production manager handpicked everyone on this crew for the most part and that it is one of the main reasons we can achieve what we do on a daily basis without major headaches.” eps holding provided over half a km of GIGS stage barriers in addition to a new product called Sight Kills. These are add-ons that are mounted on top of the standard GIGS barricade to function as sight protection for sensitive zones like the backstage VIP area. Event safety barricades around the venue were provided by Mojo Barriers. The show was built upon eps’s combined driveable and pedestrian flooring solution, ArmorDeck, which has serviced the live music events season at London Stadium. The system protects natural and artificial turf as well as surfaces such as asphalt or sandy ground and reliably withstands loads such as forklifts or trucks. Project Manager Nigel Gilbert was on site to oversee the show for eps. REFORM, TOUR... RECORD? After impressing fans and critics alike around the world, the reformed and reenergised GN’R returned to their native US to play another string of shows until the end of the year. After that... who knows? TPi Photos: Katarina Benzova, Mark Cunningham, TPi www.gunsnroses.com www.clairglobal.com www.upstaging.com www.negearth.com www.nepinc.com/welcome/screenworks www.taittowers.com www.stgfx.com www.beatthestreet.net www.transamtrucking.com www.soundmoves.com www.eps.ne www.mojobarriers.com 50

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GLASTONBURY 2017

GLASTONBURY 2017: THE TECHNICAL AND CREATIVE HIGHLIGHTS

CHROMA-Q Nearly 50 of the multi award-winning Chroma-Q Color Force II 48 luminaires were a central feature of the Pyramid Stage lighting rig at Glastonbury 2017 during both daytime and evening performances from high-profile artists including Foo Fighters, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry. Mark Cunniffe, Lighting Designer for Sunday night headliner, Ed Sheeran, was impressed by the output of the fixture, commenting: “Loved the Color Force IIs. They worked really well in a daylight application.” Kirk J Miller, Lighting Director for Katy Perry’s early evening, full daylight performance said: “I’ve used the Chroma-Q Color Force IIs on a number of TV productions and I absolutely love them. They’re bright, well-lensed, and put out some great colour. Here, even in full daylight, they make a huge dent, glad to see them in the rig.” With so much expectation, only the highest production values will do on the Pyramid Stage. Andy ‘Fraggle’ Porter, the stage’s Head of Lighting, and the festival’s premier rental supplier, Neg Earth Lights felt Chroma-Q fixtures would be ideal and flew the Color Force II 48 1.2m RGBA colour-changing LED battens above artists on the stage. From as early on as during Friday afternoon’s performances, the powerful Color Force II battens were providing the colour needed to lift great daytime shows by artists such as First Aid Kit. The band’s LD, Timo Kauristo

said: “Of course normally they would be used as cyc lighting, but they make great eye candy when seen by the audience.” The Color Force II luminaires were even more impressive during the early evening and final headline performances, providing eye candy and stage colour for much anticipated shows by international artists such as Foo Fighters, Katy Perry and massive home-grown star, Ed Sheeran. Michael Brown, Lighting Designer for The National added the Color Force II fixtures to his show just before the performance, but then used them for much of the high energy set in a wide variety of strong primary as well as pastel colours. Commenting after the show, Brown said: “I have used the original Color Force fixtures, but this is the first time I have used the Color Force IIs. I have to say they were much brighter than I thought they would be.” 6 of the Chroma-Q Space Force soft lights also formed an essential part of the rig, providing TV key lighting during the performances so cameramen could get the shots they needed for performances, many of which were available to stream live online and recorded for TV broadcast live or later on. Designed to deliver a premium performance, the Chroma-Q Color Force II and Space Force LED solutions offer formidable output, superior homogenised optics and theatrical grade dimming. TPi Photos: Anna Barclay www.chroma-q.com 52

GLASTONBURY 2017

BRYTE DESIGN AND IMAX LIGHITNG headliner Phoenix’s giant mirror and LED floor. The mirror was set up at the back of the stage, angled at 45 degrees, this then reflected the band and the LED floor out to the audience. This made the perspective of the stage look completely different, reflecting not only the band but also all of the lighting package, creating a doubling effect. In order to accommodate Phoenix’s large mirror and a number of other special additions on the modestly-sized stage, Production Co-ordinator and Head Rigger Tickle redesigned the ground support (supplied by Rigging Services) to carry the additional 5 tonnes needed for the mirror and rigging. Kinesys motors were used to raise and position the mirror during the half hour changeover. The LED floor was then rolled into position under the mirror in three sections which were pre rigged with the bands interments and lighting. London Grammar was possibly one of the highlights of this year’s festival. The band’s floor package included two rows of GLP impression X4 bars, set at two different levels of height and depth on the floor. The two walls of light created by the X4 bars were backlighting the band, following the rhythm, and lead singer Hannah Reid’s angelic voice. Combined with visuals, lighting offered a panoramic look to the stage that was quite unique. Beckett continued: ”For the second year running now we had a full width 13m upstage video wall, which was a GLUX batn10c 10mm LED screen supplied by Paul Wood at Universal Pixels. The company also supplied the FOH control package, two Green Hippo Karst’s, operated by Kate Perrin, configured as main and backup with a d3 Technologies 4x4 matrix routing the outputs and two HD-SDI feeds from the BBC who broadcast from JPS, plus UP supplied the IMAG screens and control, managed by Paul MaddockJones. He said: “For us the real workhorse fixtures of the festival were the Martin by Harman MAC Aura XB and MAC Quantum Spots, which worked faultlessly all weekend. Supplied by Gary Churchill and his team from IMAX, with support from both Ambersphere and Martin.” Another fixture to give special mention to was the Claypaky Scenius Unicos used as followspots, which were used for, among others, Phoenix and The Killers. Claypaky Scenius performed very well over the weekend and gave particularly good results on the BBC’s coverage of the stage. Control for the Scenius was delivered by a custom control system designed and installed by Pete Watts. Beckett concluded: “We had a full compliment of MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles at FOH, including 2 Full Size, 2 Lite, and 2 MA NPUs for main control plus all TV key lighting and audience fixtures. Again this year we were able to offer wysiwyg to all guest LDs with 4 stations at FOH allowing multiple programmers to work simultaneously - all of which was networked together on a Lumina System.” TPi http://www.brytedesign.co.uk/ http://www.imaxlighting.co.uk/

Bryte Design has now been involved with the design and running of the John Peel Stage for almost a decade and in that time has seen many changes. The design process was headed up by Cate Carter and Mike Smith, and assisted by Dom Adams during the festival, running FOH alongside Smith. Adams was also involved in producing most of the design CADs and render packs. Paul ‘Pablo’ Beckett, also of Bryte Design, headed up the video production for the stage. Beckett, alongside JPS Production Manager Pete Watts were responsible for putting together two custom screen designs using Desay X5.2 5mm for Annie Mac (Friday) and DJ Shadow’s (Saturday) performances. Led by Area Organiser Jim Fox, Production Co-ordinator Phil Tickle and Production Manager Pete Watts, the stage continues to evolve, however the design brief has remained consistent. Beckett said: “Each year we need to create a performance space that works for every artist from the openers to the headliners and we need to make sure the stage looks great for both the festival audience and those watching the BBC coverage at home, irrespective of how much or how little additional production each artist brings. “Each year as the stage evolves the scope of what JPS needs to deliver for our artists increases and this year was no different with a number of very challenging technical and production requirements.” One of these challenges was to successfully accommodate the Saturday

GLASTONBURY 2017

TRANSITION VIDEO Transition Video was approached by Alan King at Rockin Horse in 2015 to project manage the delivery of the 3D projection mapping on the Temple stage at The Common. Rockin Horse is also responsible for site-wide lighting at both The Common and Block 9 areas of Glastonbury. The company supplied 6 Barco HD20 20,000 ANSI video projectors, fibre runs and video distribution equipment for the venue, allowing the team to work without any loss of signal quality while providing the brightness and clarity of image that the content deserved. The comprehensive array of lighting fixtures and lasers throughout the venue were supplied by Colour Sound Experiment and with some careful consideration and placement, they served well to expand on the depth of the video mapping and really draw the whole production tightly together. The Temple’s new look saw a greatly expanded capacity and a physical redesign of the venue itself, focussing on a new, truly 3D screen in the form of a giant figurehead with a feathered headdress measuring 8m high, 20m wide and 5m deep - a project very much at home in Avolites’ Ai 3D engine. Working with Limbic Cinema, the team behind both the custom content and show time operation, Arran Rothwell-Eyre from Avolites was on-site to help create a customised VJ system for performance as well as ensuring that the members of Limbic Cinema had a deeper technical understanding of Ai allowing them to fully map the screen layout. A pair of Avolites R6 servers were specified for the job, one as main and the second as the backup. Using these servers allowed all of the outputs to run from a single graphics card, making it much easier to ensure synchronicity between the video feeds without the need for an external clocking source and the PCIe SSD storage allowed for fast delivery of multiple layers of high resolution content when asked about the setup. Rothwell-Eyre said: “Ai v10’s tools allowed us to work through the setup

quickly and easily. We had a good 3D model of the screen surface itself, so once we had our projectors placed in the project we used the mapping editor to make any adjustments we needed. The majority of the mapping was done in one night and included multiple edge blends across the head as well as some masking coupled with Ai’s remove object function to reduce the complexity of the task in other areas.” The project itself was based around a customised six-layer system, giving four mixing layers and two assignable masking layers, all of which were running content in the AiM codec at a resolution of 2800 x 2800. A live input was also used to allow real-time capture of VDMX for generative content. This was then controlled from both the Ai interface and using external MIDI devices to allow hands on real-time operation of the system. Running content of this size allowed them to have a very high level of detail in the media that was used - almost 4k in total resolution. This made it possible for the artistic effort and expertise that Limbic Cinema had applied to meet the brief of The Temple to really shine through and provide a stage that was both technically impressive and visually stunning. “I found working with Limbic Cinema to be a very enjoyable experience,” said Rothwell-Eyre. “They had a professional approach and a deep understanding of all of the required aspects to make the show work well. While it was the first time they had used Ai for mapping or show control, they jumped straight in and operated like seasoned veterans of the system. They were able to transfer their understanding of 3D modelling directly into Ai both in terms of the impressive custom UV mapped content they created and working within the 3d environment in the software.” Limbic Cinema was joined by long-term Avolites user and Lighting Designer Paul Devill, who made use of an Arena console running Titan 10.1 to control the lighting and pyrotechnics for the venue. Transition also supplied Rockin Horse with an active and Backup Barco 2K40 40,000 ANSI video projectors for Genosys at Block 9. TPi www.transitionvideo.com 54

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FUNKTION ONE AND SOUND SERVICES Glastonbury’s Glade Stage saw the return of Funktion-One’s Experimental Soundfield - a fully immersive audio experience - which was created using a Funktion-One Evo Touring sound system, supplied by Sound Services. The system featured left and right mid-high stacks of three Evo 7T, three Evo 7TL-215 and three Evo 7TH. Funktion-One’s asymmetric bass set-up was achieved with the deployment of 12 F121 on the left, together with four F132 and two F121 on the right. Four additional speaker positions, comprising three Evo 6, one F215 Mk2 and three F121, completed the six-point ambisonic surround sound system. Funktion-One’s founder, Tony Andrews, directed the audio proceedings. “We had the luxury of a two-hour soundcheck, which meant we could maximise our asymmetric bass setup and get the ambisonics surround dialled in nicely,” commented Andrews. “There was time to polarity check and to make sure what the so ware was telling us was accurate. Many things came together; the incredible sounding MC2 Deltas, full exploitation of Dante, the sonic brilliance of the Cadac CDC seven desk, the definition and depth of the F132 and finally the implementation of the high-frequency breakthrough we made in the New Year; it was fantastic. “We were using the new Dante-enabled Delta amps from MC2, which made doing the ambisonics the most straightforward it’s ever been. When you have six positions, they all have their own separate channels and they’ve all got to have their own separate input and crossover. These amps - with Dante-enabled, built in crossovers - make it very easy. It’s the best it’s ever been in that regard.” Andrews went on to sing the praises of the Cadac CDC seven. “We used it for everything, apart from two bands on the Sunday. No other desk comes close. The basic sound of the desk is so coherent and demonstrates just how much other desks decohere the audio. This holds everything

together beautifully.” Curt Gilmore of Sound Services discussed the collaboration with Funktion-One: “We were approached by Tony at Funktion-One, as I had previously worked with ambisonics successfully at Boom Festival in Portugal last year. Since then we have spent a lot of time experimenting with ambisonics and have had some really good results. It’s really great to be doing something different than your standard left and right system on a festival as it is pushing things forward.” Gilmore went on to describe some his thoughts on this year’s design. “We have been playing around with Tony’s idea of asymmetric bass with a 32in speaker on one side and a 21in on the other last year but it really came together for this show. We have never experienced bass like it where the low frequencies really took hold of your body. Everybody has been talking about it.” On the ambisonic set-up, Gilmore added: “It’s a completely different proposition to what most festivals are willing to do, sound-wise. The reason is that it is basically three separate PA systems rather than one. It requires more attention to detail but the results are worth the extra effort! Feedback and reactions have been great. We had great comments from Sasha and Digweed, Goldie, Layo and Bushwaka, to name a few.” Finally, Gilmore gave a special mentioned to the crew. “Will Wright, Ed Moor and Jake Higham as well as all of the Glade crew who ran changeovers like clockwork. As you can imagine using a brand-new desk on a stage of this size with many changeovers was a challenge but our FOH guy Flynn McBurney rose incredibly well to the challenge.” “Sound Services were brilliant,” commented Andrews. “Their preparation and attention to detail throughout the gig was exemplary they were right into it.” TPi www.funktion-one.com www.mc2-audio.co.uk www.sound-services.co.uk www.cadac-sound.com 56

Chroma-Q® Color Force II™ Centre Stage on

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GLASTONBURY 2017

FLY BY NITE Trucking specialist Fly By Nite provided its services for a cornucopia of Glastonbury’s biggest and best this year. The company’s roster for 2017 included Royal Blood, Foo Fighters, The Killers, The National, Major Lazer, George Ezra, Glass Animals, Charli XCX, Stormzy, Kaiser Cheifs, Emeli Sande, Kodaline, Rag’n’Bone Man, Slaves, Dizzee Rascal, Phoenix, Metronomy, London Grammar, Goldfrapp, Flaming Lips, Sampha and Birdy. Matt jackson commented: “We also transported the festival audio, lighting, video and catering. It was great as always and we’re not quite sure what we are going to do with ourselves with no Glastonbury next year!” TPi www.flybynite.co.uk

GLASTONBURY 2017

GLS LIGHTING GLS had yet another exciting year at Glastonbury, providing a variety of areas, floor packages and generally adding to the rental kit pool on site. GLS appearances included the Fields of Avalon stage, as Director Ian Turner explained: “Avalon has been a regular haunt of ours for a number of years, and we once again had the pleasure of supplying the full lighting package, steered by an admirable crew of Jon Curtis and Marcus Bartlett. “Their rig incorporated Chauvet Rogue R2 LED Washes, Rogue R1 Beams, Rogue R2 LED Spots as well as Strike 4 blinders; all working in contrast to some old school ACL lamps, generic PARcans, and headed up by a Chamsys MQ100. This provided for a diverse look, which was topped off with a simple bit of artistic festoonage to make the gig a little bit more personal. “Metronomy gave a blinding headline performance at John Peel Stage carrying a GLS floor package that incorporated some fabulous low smoke lighting effects designed by Ed Warren, utilising a pair of exciting and brand new MDG ICE Fog Compack HP units. Other units in the floor package included the ever in-demand GLP impression X4 bar 20’s, GLP impression X4’s, and TMB Solaris Flares.” The Flaming Lips gave another GLS-backed headline performance, this time on Park Stage, with a floor package utilising Claypaky Sharpys, Martin by Harman Atomic 3000 Strobes, MAC Viper Profiles, GLP impression X4’s, and generic molefays. The show was controlled on GLS’ MA Lighting grandMA2 Lites.

Solange appeared at West Holts for another great performance, utilising another GLS floor package, built and looked after by crew boss Karen Brown. Another eclectic mix of Martin by Harman MAC Quantum Washes, GLP impression X4’s, Vari-Lite VL4000 Spots, Robe 600E Spots and Color Force 72 battens topped off a great show. Turner concluded: “With Glastonbury done and dusted, GLS are truly excited to be providing for a number of other independent festivals over the summer, and look forward to seeing you there!” TPi Photo: Karen Brown www.glslighting.com

GLASTONBURY 2017

CHAUVET PROFESSIONAL without a hitch throughout the festival,” said Howard. “Ultimately, the Maverick fixtures ensured that we could consistently draw attention to the Ribbon Tower from all around the festival site. As a result, the tower attracted festival-goers in their swathes. We’re so pleased to have contributed to the excellent atmosphere at this year’s event.” THE FIELD OF AVALON To provide warm and engaging lighting for the Field of Avalon’s main stage this year, returning provider GLS Lighting specified a collection of Rogue and STRIKE 4 fixtures from Chauvet Professional, in addition to 10 Chauvet DJ Festoon fixtures. “As the Avalon Stage serves as a key focal point not just within the Field of Avalon, but also within the Glastonbury festival itself, we wanted to create some big looks to make the stage stand out even more this year,” commented Ian Turner, GLS Project Manager. “With our curated selection of Chauvet Professional fixtures, we were able to provide excellent support to bands such as Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Busted.” The GLS team, headed by Marcus Bartlett and John Curtis, positioned 12 Rogue R1 Beam, 8 Rogue R2 Wash and 8 Rogue R2 Spot fixtures on upstage trussing. While the R1 Beams were selected for their incredibly punchy beams and compact size, the combination of the saturated colours of the R2 Wash and the powerful beams and gobo effects of the R2 Spot provided the lighting technicians at the Avalon Stage with a versatile toolbox of looks from which to accompany the performances with incredible atmosphere. Given that the stage was up and running during all hours of the day, one of Turner’s key considerations was ensuring no show atmosphere was lost for the performers playing during the sunlight hours. Thanks to the incredibly bright Rogue fixtures, Bartlett and Curtis had a practical tool for both the daylight and evening shows. The six STRIKE 4 fixtures, which were positioned on above stage and side stage truss. Thanks to the excellent blinding, warm white wash and strobe effects of the fixture, Turner and his team were able to usher in a much larger stadium feel to many key moments in the various shows. The piece de resistance of the Avalon stage, however, was the 10 Chauvet DJ Festoon fixtures which were placed around the tent. The dynamic IP-rated pixel-mappable light strings brought an additional vintage look to the stage, which helped to underline the field of Avalon’s relaxed festival atmosphere.

RIBBON TOWER The superstars on stage weren’t the only crowd pleasers at this year’s event, as the 20m high multi-coloured Ribbon Tower, set against the brilliant light produced by 10 Maverick MK1 Hybrids from Chauvet Professional also attracted a fair amount of attention. Simon Marcus, MD at Enlightened Lighting, specified the powerful 440W moving lights to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the tower and the park area that surrounds it. In addition to creating an aerial lightshow, the Maverick fixtures fit harmoniously with the tower uplights, and add drama and presence to the structure. Installed in weatherproof domes, the MK1’s were positioned in a line behind the tower, which festival-goers were invited to climb to get a bird’s eye view of the grounds. David Howard, student at the University of South Wales and placement student of Enlightened, used the Maverick fixtures in both beam and spot modes to create a variety of stunning effects. “The power and versatility of the Mavericks allowed the tower to be a focal point of the entire site,” said Howard. “We switched seamlessly between beam looks and animated effects in the air with ease.” Situated near areas like Arcadia, which were producing intense aerial effects of their own, the Ribbon Tower needed to command attention while still projecting a welcoming feeling that was in keeping with the friendly atmosphere of the park. Howard drew on the Maverick’s CMY colour system and variable zoom range to create interesting and eye-catching looks that also conveyed an inviting sense of warmth. “The Mavericks allowed bold and dramatic looks to be achieved in the sky, which were in keeping with the feel of the surrounding,” added Howard. “The feature set of the MK1’s meant that no look had to be repeated in the entirety of the one hour timecoded display.” During the five-day festival, the fixtures were put through their paces night after night on a relentless routine of stunningly vivid aerial effects. As a result, reliability and durability were of upmost importance in specifying the Maverick fixtures. “It’s a testament to the quality of the fixtures that they performed

CIRCUS BIG TOP AND WOW! While the 2 stages featured very different forms of entertainment, both had a consistently excellent visual palette thanks once again to Fineline Lighting and rigs that featured a large selection of Maverick MK2 Wash, Maverick MK1 Spot, Maverick MK1 Hybrid, Rogue R2 Beam, and Rogue R2 Wash fixtures. At the 1,500 capacity Circus Big Top stage, LD James Loudon specified 10 440W Maverick MK1 Spot fixtures to create stunning spot effects in support of the varied program of circus acrobatic performances. As several sides of the Circus Big Top tent were exposed to sunlight during the day, a critical consideration for Sangwell when specifying spot fixtures was brightness. “One of the obvious factors we had to contend with was daylight creeping in and destroying the show atmosphere,” continued Fineline MD Rob Sangwell. “The brightness of the Maverick Spot fixtures ensured that the circus atmosphere was upheld throughout the days.” To complement the Maverick fixtures used in the Circus Big Top stage, Sangwell specified a number of Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Washes. With performers both on stage and performing aerial acrobatics, the Rogues worked in unison with the Mavericks to create the many and varied looks required for each artist. Maverick fixtures also supported EDM performances on the WOW! stage, located in Glastonbury’s Silver Hayes. LD James ‘Chimpy’ Harrington used eight Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 Wash and eight Maverick MK1 Hybrid fixtures on the stage, positioned on the overstage trusses and upstage video structure, together with R2 Beams and R2 Washes positioned on the over audience trusses. Chimpy combined the saturated colours of the Maverick Wash and the powerful spot and beam effects of the Maverick Hybrid fixtures to create a cornucopia of pulsating looks that kept crowds energised until the early hours of the morning. TPi Photo: Shirlaine Forrest www.chauvetprofessional.com 60

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CLARKE CABLE In the midst of another busy festival season Clarke Cable was called upon to manufacture innovative solutions for a number of stages across Glastonbury. On the Pyramid Stage, lighting provider, Neg Earth Lights, requested Clarks in for rugged 16-amp Y Splitters to supplement other DMX and Power solutions provided preevent. The company’s multi- cable Power and DMX solution assisted in swift rigging and re-rigging of trusses to ensure timely stage transitions between acts over the weekend. The same solutions were also deployed on the Other Stage. PRG XL Video was able to deploy the new Motor Fanout solutions created by Clarke Cable. The heart of any synchronised lifting solution is the integrity of the cabling to ensure that all the motors work in tandem and safely lift the truss and flown structures to their working trim height. Arcadia, a return customer for Clarke, joined forces with the cable manufacturer again adding to last year’s order of 8.5km of bespoke time saving cabling with an additional 1.5km order of control cabling. Dorian Cameron-Marlow, Arcadia’s Deputy Technical Manager, discussed the collaboration: “Clarke Cable have provided us with the most durable cable solution I have ever used which saves up to 200 hours per install. That also extends to lower stress levels and less contingencies and allows us to deliver a better show.” TPi Photo: Shirlaine Forrest www.clarkecable.co.uk

GLASTONBURY 2017

SERIOUS STAGES

Glastonbury Festival’s new-look Other Stage was designed and manufactured by Serious Stages, which also installed the system along with the main stages across the site. Dedicated to improving the festival experience for artists and fans, the organisers’ long-term relationship with Serious Stages made the company the obvious choice of contractor to create a new look Other Stage to accommodate the large scale incoming band productions from the likes of Stormzy, Major Lazer and Boy Better Know. This four-tower 25m TZ roof featured a sloped back, to give extra on-stage storage for artists and production, along with clear-span wings creating a much improved working area with increased space for the incoming productions. An offset leg design on the rear of the goalpost created the space for the side-shed. The main deck, rear shed, side wings, ramps and underworld also offered improved performance and working areas and presented extensive loading facilities for crew. With a total height of 20m and an overall width of 70m, the stage was complete with the Other Stage’s iconic art installation, which this year took the form of a metal fish, sat on the front of the 6m cantilever roof. Serious’ Max Corfield commented: “As one of the biggest events in the global festival calendar, we were excited to launch our new stage at Glastonbury Festival, and be able to enhance the experience for artists, production teams and the audience. It’s technically and aesthetically another progression in our range of large stages. “We worked closely with the Glastonbury team to create this new stage, which was designed by our in-house CAD team and manufactured by our engineers at our head office in Somerset. Our Project Manager, Simon Fursman, was crucial to the installation. While we used as many components of our existing TZ roofs, he guided the on-site team through the new elements within this system and ensured this new stage was constructed to the highest standard.” Serious Stages has been working with Glastonbury Festival for over four decades and for the 2017 edition it once again supplied almost 60 structures which included the flooring and trussing on the Pyramid Stage, the four main stage roofs, most of the dance tent stages including the John Peel Stage and the Sonic Stage, the Ribbon Tower, plus multiple structures throughout the festival site including camera runs, media platforms, FOH structures, accessible viewing platforms and structural supports. Building on the success of last year, Serious Stages once again worked directly with the BBC to design and build a 12.6m x 17.4m media studio, complete with a presentation platform, which overlooked the entire site. TPi Photos: Plaster Creative Communications www.stages.co.uk 62

GLASTONBURY 2017

REALLY CREATIVE MEDIA Really Creative Media continued its working relationship with British electro trio Clean Bandit for the band’s Glastonbury performance. Jack James (pictured), Really Creative Media’s Project Manager talked about the company’s involvement with the bands stage design. “We started our relationship with the band in 2016 when we designed the stage content for their sophomore album,” stated James. “Most recently, the band decided they wanted a unique look for their TV appearances to give a different feel to these performances so we have worked on putting together a summer festivals live visuals package for them.”

He went on to explain the brief they were given: “It’s a very collaborative process as we get to pitch content ideas and themes to the band that takes influences from their existing album artwork, as well as working in tandem with Rob Sinclair, the band’s lighting designer / show designer. As well as putting ideas forward, it’s a great working relationship with the band as they too are forthcoming with ideas and take an active interest in all production elements that go into making their own show. Some artists are happy to fully hand over concept creation to a show designer and see the end result, whereas Clean Bandit are hands on, making their own music videos and pulling all creative direction together themselves. “For this summer visuals package, we have deliberately opted for a video style that is specifically designed to be seen from afar, with the camera vantage point 10m from the screen, so we have gone for nearly all aerial footage and timelapse content, with abstract top down views and flying shots. All the content is clearly identifiable from far away which is key when designing for attracting crowds at festival sites, particularly Glastonbury, which is so large and sprawling.” With a whole host of festival performances during the summer, Glastonbury always holds a special place in a bands schedule. “Glastonbury does not only have a large live audience but is viewed by millions globally,” stated James. “We carefully consider how an artists wishes to be perceived and how we can make a festival set look different from one to the next, with consideration that fans may visit more than one festival in one season and look for a unique experience each time. Another key point to remember when working specifically with Clean Bandit is that they are predominantly an instrumental band, they have multiple guest vocalists and each one could perform the song slightly differently depending on vocal range or scale of backing vocals, so each version of how the song could be performed requires tailored visual content, resulting in perhaps six or seven versions per track, multiply that by a set’s worth of songs and that’s a lot of content to design!” James gave his final thoughts on the event: “It’s an incredible experience to be working with a band that has had a meteoric rise to stardom in a very short space of time, and having such a collaborative sense of creativity is very exciting for us as we get to showcase the full extent of our digital expertise in the live events sector.” TPi www.reallycreativemedia.co.uk

GLASTONBURY 2017

LITEUP Not many bands would choose to go head-tohead with Glastonbury giants, Foo Fighters, on a Saturday night, but British Mercury prizewinning trio, alt-J, chose to do just that this year. Turning the festival’s The Other Stage into a visual feast of tessellating light and video, alt-J blazed into the night, attracting crowds with dirty digital rock beats and a stand-out stage show. The creative brains behind the band’s lighting and video design were Jeremy Lechterman and Jackson Gallagher, founders of production design firm FragmentNine. “For this tour we wanted to create something totally enveloping,” said Lechterman. “An environment as inventive as the band’s music, magnifying the anthemic moments, and creating the illusion of a cozy crucible for the delicate moments.” FragmentNine worked with technical coordinator and hire outfit Liteup Events who supplied the tour with its lighting and video package. The looks were created by 42 ROE Vanish 25 and 150 Martin by Harman VDO Sceptron 10mm pixel-pitch LED screen modules, along with 84 GLP impression X4 Bar 20 LED battens, and 18 Claypaky Mythos2 moving heads mounted behind the ROE LED screen. To ensure the correct mounting angles, Liteup provided custom-made fittings throughout the set. “Playing such a variety of shows, from the O2 arena and Glastonbury to bespoke festivals like Montreal Jazz, we needed a floor package that would keep our design cohesive and flexible,” explained Lechterman. “One of its strengths is how it immerses the band in a world that can be video, lighting or both. It was important to us to come up with something that truly made the band feel mysterious and larger than life.” Co-founder of Liteup and alt-J Crew Chief Marc Callaghan is the man on the ground responsible for organising, assembling and managing the logistics of alt-J’s set. “I have been crew chiefing for alt-J for nearly three years,” said Callaghan. “Liteup is the tour’s official technical partner, so it is also supplying all the lighting and video packages for the band’s summer festival run, as well as the lighting and video control package worldwide. I play a dual role throughout the 18 months, meaning that I can keep an eye on the equipment and give a real hands-on service to the production.” Having Callaghan on tour proved invaluable to Lechterman and

Gallagher. “Marc and his team are the best out there,” added Lechterman. “We have a good personal relationship, so it is always a laugh. From logistics to kit to helping us design solutions to get our design out on the road, it couldn’t be better. Our routing is a bit mental, so having Marc on the other end of the radio or in the dressing room instead of timezones away when trying to sort out the next leg of the tour is key.” To devise a custom dolly solution to get the production’s near-on 250 fixtures and the 60ft wrap-around video screen, onto any festival stage in 10 minutes, Liteup collaborated with WonderWorks, Brilliant Stages and FragmentNine. “At Glastonbury we had to get over 400 fixtures onstage and working in a tight changeover,” said Callaghan. “With a show like this it is important that the touring crew and the suppliers work closely together to achieve the maximum potential. You can’t get closer than being one and the same!” “It’s great to see alt-J performing on such high-profile, world-wide stages,” concluded Callaghan. “They are a fantastic band with a completely different sound. Follow that up with the best production team I have ever worked with and we have a show that completely blows people away!” TPi Photo: The Fifth Estate www.liteup.co.uk

D3 TECHNOLOGIES Once again in Glastonbury’s notorious south east corner was the site of Shangri-La and it’s 8 sided 360 degree immersive video installation. Head of Visual Art for the space was Nick Diacre discussed the goal with the design this year: “We had 8-sided scaffolding towers that were desinged to resemble a Victorian gas tower with projections mapped to each face creating a full immersive enviroment,” stated Diacre. The production utilised 1 d3 2x2plus and 2 2x4pros. “Four us, stability is key and the system needed to run non-stop for 5 days with no glitches,” commented Diacre. “We needed a system that reliably captured and remapped with minimum latency to ensure we could integrate guest VJs and performers.”We ended up going for d3 because of its versatility for playback and capture. Also it’s ability to rapidly create multiple mappings across the canvas, and quickly switch between cues is fantastic as well as the integration of 360 degree videos which captured live performances.” With the high volume of artists on the Shangri-La stage, the production needed a system that was able to keep up with the variety of performances. “It was easy for us to integrate and switch up mappings and layouts with minimal delay using the d3,” stated Diacre. “Some turnarounds were literally minutes, but d3 gave us the speed and flexibility to jump from one setup to another with no delay. Also credit has to be given the their crew

who were amazing. They couldn’t have been more helpful both in preproduction and while on site.” TPi Photo: Shirlaine Forrest www.d3technologies.com

GLASTONBURY 2017

RG JONES RG Jones first stepped onto Pilton soil in 2007, providing control and monitors for the Pyramid Stage. This gave the company an opportunity to demonstrate its understanding of what makes a high-pressure event such as this tick. Handin-hand with its flagship Martin Audio system, the company went on to provide the complete sound solution in 2008, and has been the sound company of choice ever since, a feat so far unprecedented with audio suppliers at the festival. The W8L system served the Pyramid Stage proud until 2014, when the hyper high-tech MLA system made its Glastonbury debut. With its ability to be programmed to cover an audience incredibly evenly and, equally importantly, control what goes on beyond the audience, it has made a notable difference to the experience, raising levels to the low 100dB’s while still managing not to upset the neighbours. Festival production recognised what this arrangement brings to the show and, as a result, RG’s have now been supplying West Holts and Block 9 Genosys with MLA Compact systems over the last two years. In the case of West Holts, a stage renowned for showcasing the weird and wacky as well as a wide range of world music, it was a matter of containment within the festival itself. West Holts is surrounded by many traders and is close to both Greenpeace and the Glade Stage, who have suffered in previous years from overspill from the action on stage. The remit was to try and maintain the levels in the West Holts arena while keeping the levels down in the surrounding stages and markets. Jack Bowcher, assisted by Damion Dyer and some West Holts veterans from past years, once again deployed 40 MLA Compact and 16 MLX subs, set out to a far-flung field. “This stage is MLA compact” explained Dyer. “It’s a multi-cellular system with resolution up to 4 amplifier channels, doubling up on low-end drivers. The system basically ignores what’s coming out of the PA at close range and instead focuses on what actually arrives at the audience.” A new addition for West Holts were 24 of Martin Audio’s flagship XE range of monitor wedges. Low profile, very loud and featuring CDD technology in a uniquely designed cabinet for optimal pattern control, this was the first serious public outing for these radical monitors. In an even further flung field, beyond the Fields of Avalon, was Block 9, one of the most popular late night dance venues that the festival now curates. After all the music stages have finished, the site splits in half - the south-east corner and the north-west corner. Thousands flock to the southeast corner to lose themselves in Shangri-La and Block 9. These stages run through the night until 6am, and the punters naturally want it pumping. The neighbours, however, do not. The license regulations state that no one sound system should be heard off site after 23:30. Genosys is out in the open air, and has suffered in the past from being reduced to a mere 88 dBA, which is not conducive to shaking it about. “It’s the second year RG Jones have provided the solution here,”

explained Simon Honywill. “Historically they’ve had huge problems with the leakage because the licensing regulations state that off-site no one single noise source can be heard above the overall festival hubbub, and they had real problems with this one. It was a ground stacked left and right system and they were running at 80 to 83, 85 if they were lucky. We came up with this solution - 10 a side Martin MLA Compact and 12 DSX subs, and two little arrays of MLA Mini as infills. It’s been a really great result and they’re very happy with it. You can do so much more with [MLA] it leaves everything else in the dark, it makes a conventional line array look and sound prehistoric because you can’t control the wavefront in anything like the same way and get the same degree of coverage - and get it to stop hitting where you don’t want it hit. But it does all that and sounds incredible - I’d have that at home if I could! I knew exactly what MLA Compact could do and never doubted we would get a great result for the lovely people of the weird and wonderful world of Block 9.” TPi Photos: Shirlaine Forrest http://rgjones.co.uk

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GLASTONBURY 2017

CATO MUSIC Glastonbury was a very different outing to Parklife for Team Cato. For a start, it was dry... Cato’s Sam Wilkinson said: “We have always tried to be involved with bands from day one. Whether it’s through work as tour support consultants at major labels or through our British Music Embassy stage at SXSW, we are always trying to help develop the next generation and the might of BBC Introducing is absolutely vital in this process. “There seems to be very little support for up and coming artists, with a lot of the production industry focussing on the money-makers without considering where the next Coldplay or Muse will be coming from. Where the industry has seen a 12% rise in audiences, smaller music venues ‘have been closing in their droves over the past decade, declining by 35% in London thanks to rising costs, pressures from property developers and strict licensing laws. And that is something that is very worrying to all concerned.” On the BBC Introducing stage, Cato helped to stage manage and coordinate the technical production alongside Frankie Tee, the team from the BBC and the in-house production crew. Wilkinson added: “Over the years, the level of bands playing the stage has escalated; we’re seeing bands bringing in their own desks and split systems, DIY IEM systems, multi-instrument setups - all this on a stage that’s been traditionally geared up as a ‘generic’ rock band setup with minimal space for changeovers, no rolling riser system, 15-minute changeovers and all mixed in with interspersed live to air slots. This meant that running late simply wasn’t an option, but that only adds to the fun of the stage. “We’ve had students at Glastonbury for three years running now after Emily Eavis saw the work Glen Rowe and the rest of the team were doing with the Cato Academy. We had a team of 10 students on site from both Cato Academy and Backstage Academy managing a variety of tasks from stage managing and lighting to artist liaison and catering. This was

all coordinated by Cato’s Charlie Rickard, who was in charge of student welfare and making sure everyone was looked after and in the right place at the right time. We also had five ex-students returning to the festival in a professional capacity which is always great to see.” Wilkinson concluded: “The 2017 crew were fantastic all across Silver Hayes and further afield. This was my first Glastonbury on that side of production after doing it a fair few times in a touring capacity with various artists. There were several bands that came to us over the weekend for whom Glastonbury was their first festival performance ever. There’s something really special about that especially being able to put them at ease and calm the nerves. I think we achieved a smooth running stage with loads of amazing new artists and some incredible special guests, which will hopefully keep some of the focus of the industry on the next generation of Sheerans and Foo Fighters.” TPi www.catomusic.co.uk

ROCKIN HORSE Rockin Horse handled lighting design and production for the Block9 area of Glastonbury. “Once again we handled of three of the in and outdoor dance venues in the Block9 field,” stated Alan King of Rockin Horse. “This included Genosys, the NYC Downlow and the London Underground. Over the weekend we had Colour Sound Experiment, Richard Martin Lighting and Panalux providing lighting and video for the area with Transition Video providing video projection.” A notable return to this year’s area was Unity, a 3D games engine which Rockin Horse have used for the last 5 years. “We use the software for the projection mapping for Genosys,” stated King. “Under our art direction, Igloo Vision ran live effects on the mesh of the structure.” All the lighting for the area was carefully chosen the complement the set and historic era with a mix of stage, cinematic and practical lighting fixtures. The control package consisted of a ChamSys MQ500 and and MQ100 along with an Avolites Arena lighting console. Video control included Igloo’s custom Unity system, projection mapping Genosys and a Green Hippo V3 HD for the London Underground. Rockin Horse was also involved in The Common region of the site. “This year The Temple in Common was redesigned and much larger than previous years, which was open plan with no roof,” commented King. This led to the requirement for waterproof workhorse fixtures. In the end the new 42 Aquabeams from Colour Sound Experiment alongside 30 Chauvet DJ COLORbands and 42 Dragon Lights LED PARs were selected. For each venue within Common an Avolites control package was deployed at the requests of all LDs working the weekend. “Common is not singularly art directed and tends to be more open to interpretation,” commented King. “It’s almost traditional in its approach to mapping and content, using very beautifully put together wall paper and graphics, rendered out in a UV map and played as visuals.” TPi Photo: Shirlaine Forrest 66

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GLASTONBURY 2017

VIDEO ILLUSIONS For the fifth consecutive year, Video Illusions supplied the Silver Hayes area with Video Production on the Sonic Stage and the Pussy Parlure. Video Illusions’ Nick Whiteoak commented: “We love the Sonic Stage first and foremost and the whole crew on Silver Hayes is such a family vibe - we all have the same pull together ethos that I’m sure most of the stages at Glastonbury have. We’ve honed the build for Sonic over the five years. Things were a lot drier this year, which made for a fantastic load-in; Jem Meluish was impeccable as ever with his distribution of site plant for the techs and power / risers.” The company provided VIL6 6mm IP65 5500 Nitts LED panels with a backdrop of 6.4m x 3.6m LED screen within the goalpost truss that cut through the stage onto the grass. Whiteoak continued: “That’s the tricky thing with the saddle span - it has basically zero weight loading per arch - so we have to drum up ways to get anything in the air. “Our VJ Tim Star used Modul8 and created a substantial amount of new content for this year’s event, also allowing for touring VJs to plug in on stage or FOH and have full control of the LED. As well as mapping the LED with the new content, we also had feeds from all the cameras to switch in and mix up what we were able to put out to the LED screens - and create more stunning live visuals / cameras.” He added: “A highlight this year was Fatboy Slim on the Satutrday night. You couldn’t fit any more people in the field for that show and there were great visuals from Bob as always. In between acts we had the live Twitter feed out to the central screen and the two IMAGs outside. These IMAGs were also showing the camera mix from Solent University, coming down to us via

HDSDI. Again we scaled and mapped it to fit the duplicated VIL6 6mm LED screens outside on the decking scaffold either end of the saddle span.” The crew, completed by Jayne Webb, Glen Gardiner, Oli Chilton, Tim Star and Jake Burchell, used Calibre LEDView730’s to scale and switch all the inputs and outputs, Blackmagic Monitors and Linsn LED Processors. Video Illusions provided the 4m x 2.5m LED screen, also VIL6 6mm, in the centre of Pussy Parlure’s stage. The crew also used a Barco Folsom Image Pro 2 HD Scaler. The stage’s VJs were Tom Harding and Sarah Penpraze. TPi www.videoillusions.net

DIGICO DiGiCo’s Mark Saunders was on site at Glastonbury, getting around to speak to the companies, sound engineers, rental companies and broadcasters making use of the brand over the weekend. He worked closely with South West Group Events across its stages, who had deployed DiGiCo S21’s with D2 Stage Racks, which were used at the monitor position and as an offline console on the BBC Introducing Stage with an S31 used as the FOH console throughout the weekend. Incoming acts that used DiGiCo consoles on the major stages included Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran and Rag‘n’Bone Man (via TPi Award winner Rob Sadler, pictured), who all carried SD7’s for FOH. Halsey’s FOH Engineer chose an SD5, as did Katy Perry’s Monitor Engineer. SD10’s were seen at Paul Carrack and Hacienda Classical’s FOH positions, as well as Liam Gallagher’s monitors. Gallagher’s crew also chose an SD9 at FOH, while Ride used an S21. The new SD12 was used across various stages by The XX (FOH and monitors), George Ezra (FOH and monitors) and at FOH by Clean Bandit on The John Peel Stage. “After the success of last year’s time at Glastonbury, is was good to come down and catch up with a lot of engineers and rental company customers again,” said Saunders. “It’s the perfect environment to get some feedback and input from the engineers already using our product, as well as speaking to potential new users.” TPi Katy Perry photo: Shirlaine Forrest www.digico.biz 68

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GLASTONBURY 2017

AVOLITES The British media server and console manufacturer enjoyed its usual strong presence at the festival this year, with a multitude of its products utilised for various stages across the three-day event. Lighting Director Ben Everett controlled Jamie Thompson of MIRRAD’s Knight of Illumination (KOI) nominated design on the The Other Stage for Emeli Sandé on two Sapphire Touch consoles. Indie rock band Wild Beasts were also performing on The Other Stage, with LD Will Kinnard using his Tiger Touch II to control the energetic lighting effects for the band. Also from MIRRAD was KOI award-winning LD Francis Clegg with Kano on The Park Stage and Slaves on The Other Stage using an Avo Quartz and Wing setup for both. The John Peel Stage saw another KOI award winner, LD Tom Campbell, use his Quartz for the high-impact Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes set and Dan Creasey of Congo Design with his personal Titan Mobile for Declan McKenna. Also on a Quartz was LD Miles Weaver of Cue Design and Show Operator Nick Whitehead for Kate Tempest at West Holts. Weaver was also present with DJ Mura Masa at Silver Hayes using a Quartz. LD Tom Laurent could also be found dancing away at FOH while using a Quartz and Titan Wing for Loyle Carner in the John Peel Tent. Headlining West Holts was Justice, with Video Operator Sebastien Sacco from PreVues using an Avolites RX8 Ai media server to control the set’s visuals. Ai was also down in the depths of The Common on the newly redesigned dance stage, The Temple, with visuals designed by Limbic Cinema. An Avolites team was on the ground with two Avolites Ai R6 Media servers, with lighting designed and controlled by Paul DeVille on an Arena console. Avolites proved popular at The Common, with designers Julian Weare and Colm Whaley using an Arena amid the vast light show and big sound beats of reggae stage, The Cave, and Daniel English serving up some cool lighting effects on a Tiger Touch II at the Rum Shak. Down in immersive nightclub The London Underground, LD Jonathan Godsmark used an Arena console for Block 9’s crowning glory, while on The Sonic Stage at Silver Hayes, Jonathan Oliver of Wolf Lighting used a Tiger Touch II. LD Stephen Abbiss used ART2000 dimmer racks or Brighton DJ Fatboy Slim’s Saturday headline slot. Things got spicy over on the Glastonbury Latino Stage where the Enlighten crew of Emma Perry, Sam Chandler, Marc Aitken and David Johnson were hands-on with a Tiger Touch II console. At Shangri-La’s The Truth stage, LD James Bunning used an Arena Console and Avolites R8 Ai media server, operated by Will Guinn and supplied by PF Events, creating riotous lighting effects. Fineline Lighting continued its long tradition of supplying The Acoustic stage and Circus Big Top, this year with LDs James Louden, Ben De Sousa

and Simon ‘Junior’ Johnson on Sapphire Touch consoles, and The Cabaret with designers Rachel Moule and Wingnut on Tiger Touch II consoles. Rounding off Fineline’s stages was The Acoustic Stage where LD Simon ‘Junior’ Johnson was on a Sapphire Touch. The Love Bullets stage, supplied by Twisted Audio, saw designers Richard Bullen and Alex Boot on a Tiger Touch II and Titan Wing, and then, rounding everything off was Arcadia - the fire-breathing, kaleidoscopic visual feast by lighting and production design company, MIRRAD. MIRRAD’s David Cohen used a pair of Sapphire Touch consoles and a Wing for the spider-stage’s lights, a Quartz for flame control and an Ai RX8 media server operated by Tom Wall to output Arcadia’s video mapping. TPi www.avolites.org.uk

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TPi speaks to the student that this year took on the lighting design of one of Glastonbury’s iconic structures, the Ribbon Tower.

When did you first become interested in entertainment technology? It’s something I have always been drawn to since school and I have always had a passion for lighting. This led me to eventually apply for a BSC in Lighting, Design & Technology at the University of South Wales. How have your studies prepared you for the jobs you’ve already worked on? After 2 years of studying & a placement year with Enlightened Lighting in Bristol, I feel my knowledge and work ethic have developed far beyond my initial expectations. The course itself has delivered a solid mixture of technical, scientific and practical lessons that have been applied over the course of my placement year. The course is tailored to allow the application of knowledge that has been taught in the classroom with ‘real world’ projects integrated throughout the year. The tutors are extremely supportive in external independent projects; they know the value of education as well as the importance that freelance networking opportunities bring. What have you been working on of late? I am just coming to the end of my year-long work placement with Enlightened Lighting in Bristol, which has been a fantastic opportunity. During this year, with the help of the NRG (Next Robe Generation) I was also given the opportunity to design the lighting in the reception area for the TPi Awards, working under Nathan Wan. However this year’s highlight has to be Glastonbury. The festival Park area is a recurring job for Enlightened and the company’s Managing Director, Simon Marcus, put me in charge of the lighting design for the iconic Ribbon Structure. The Park sector of the site is mellow and I wanted to reflect this in the tower. The fixtures we opted for were Chauvet Professional Maverick MK1’s. The power and versatility of the Mavericks allowed the tower to be a focal point of the entire site. We switched seamlessly between beam looks and animated effects in the air with ease. So what’s next for you? Finishing my degree! It’s a busy year ahead with a multitude of group assignments and my own individual dissertation. After university I really have my heart set on becoming a freelance designer. I have picked up a few bits of work while on my placement with Enlightened. Also since Glastonbury I have been bitten by the festival bug and hope to work on a few more in the future. Production Futures is just around the corner. What are your thoughts on the event? I unfortunately had to miss the first Production Futures last year but will definitely be attending this year. A networking event like this is very unique and seems like a fantastic opportunity to meet fellow students from other courses, as well as prospective employers. The offering of talks and hands-on demos, not to mention the presence of so much knowledge and experience, is extremely attractive to students. I’m really looking forward to attending in October. TPi www.productionfutures.co.uk

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CLOCKING OFF

Paul Robson (right) and Lee Dennison introduce the Pit Stop Challenge; Brilliant Stages & Production Park celebrate 1st place with Autograph’s Duncan Bell (second from right) and Lee Dennison.

BACKUP KARTFEST 2017 RAISES MASSIVE £21,000 This year’s Backup Kartfest was fast, furious, full of thrills and a few spills. The event was Hawaiian luau-themed and music came from house band Under Cover, featuring White Light’s Roger Dean on drums. The best thing about the adrenaline-fuelled day was the incredible £21,000 it raised for the charity, which provides financial assistance to entertainment technology professionals, or their immediate family, who are seriously ill or recovering from injury.

33 industry teams, with 6 drivers per team, took part in the Le Mansstyle three-hour endurance race and the pit stop challenge to become the quickest team to change the tyres on a Formula One car. “As always, Kartfest was a fantastic, team spirited event, made all the better by everyone joining in the fun and banter whilst racing ultracompetitively for 3 hours in the sunshine,” said new Backup trustee, Medialease’s Paul Robson. “It took a lot of organising by the Lee Dennison, Jim Dugan from Unusual and the production team, who did an absolutely stunning job.” First place went to the Brilliant Stages / Production Park team, who completed 202 laps of the circuit, with Really Useful Theatres in second and DiGiCo taking up third place. Fastest lap went to Ed Ward from Production Park, with DiGiCo’s Tim Shaxson awarded slowest lap after an eventful drive threw him out of his car. He was, somewhat ironically, awarded a pair of driving gloves donated by Yamaha as his consolation prize. “I’m really pleased to see the Backup charity growing so much and to watch the industry really get behind the cause,” says Duncan Bell from first prize sponsor Autograph. “The Backup charity offers an amazing support system to the technical entertainment world, and everyone at Autograph is very proud to contribute to the cause, and to sponsor the Kartfest Autograph Cup. The Kartfest days have got better and better thanks to the hard work of Lee and his team, which is demonstrated by the amazing sum raised on the day.” “Backup was there for me and my family after I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of high grade Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma of the central nervous system,” said lighting technician Mark Pritchard. “Although I hadn’t been too aware of Backup before, a couple of colleagues suggested I contact them and see if they could help. “After a couple of conversations and an application we were honoured to be awarded a financial contribution since I was self-employed and

my wife Helen wasn’t working, as she was waiting to start her university degree. The contribution was to help us with mortgage and childcare costs for our two toddlers that we simply couldn’t have met, as I haven’t been able to work since I was diagnosed in October. “Since then, I’ve done my best to promote Backup and contribute back as much as I can. In April I ‘got the band back together’ to do a gig and raised £2,500 for the charity and I’ve supported the golf and karting days. Backup are a tremendously friendly and approachable group of people who can’t do enough for those that need it.” “Kartfest was hugely enjoyable, despite my first-time duties as a cohost with the ever so professional luvvie, Lee Dennison and raising £21,000, which was made up of £18,000 from sponsorships, team donations, and raffles, plus another £3,000 from the sale of Bryan Leitch’s Ford Victor, which acted as pace car for the day, was truly amazing,” concluded Robson. “On a personal note, I’m delighted to be invited to become a trustee of Backup and am looking forward to working alongside my other experienced trustees in this role, which is quite a departure from my usual day job. I’ll be taking the role and the responsibilities it holds very seriously, and I’m looking forward to more fundraising opportunities coming up in 2017, as some good ideas were aired by enthusiastic volunteers during the day,” he said. One such opportunity is Comfest, an evening of standup comedy, which is being scheduled for this coming October, of which details will be announced shortly. To be sure you don’t miss them, subscribe to Backup’s newsletter at www.backuptech.uk. Any companies that would like to work more closely with Backup can contact Lee Dennison: lee.dennison@whitelight.ltd.uk TPi www.backuptech.uk 76

GEAR HEADS

AVID VENUE | S6L TPi spoke to Avidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Principal Product Manager, Al McKinna, to discuss the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest offering to the audio world, the VENUE S6L.

What was the original brief to develop the S6L? The original brief for VENUE S6L was to introduce a next generation, premium-level, flagship live sound-mixing environment that builds on the legacy of the market-leading Avid VENUE systems. VENUE has long been one of the most trusted and requested live mixing systems in the world. The legacy continues with S6L, a modular live system that offers unprecedented processing and performance, modern touchscreen workflows, exceptional sound quality, enhanced networking and connectivity while maintaining familiarity with existing VENUE customers.

effects than any other live sound console with superior DAW integration with Pro Tools. The desk itself has an innovative control surface with unmatched visual feedback with software that minimalise users learning curve and provides full show file compatibility between S6L and all other VENUE systems. It seems like the Plug-In and connection to Pro Tools was of the utmost importance with this desk. Why are these functions so synonymous with the console? Plug-in processing and Pro Tools connectivity are very important indeed. As an Avid VENUE console, it was essential that S6L introduce these capabilities as they are expected by our customers. Avid invented the plug-in processing ecosystem with Pro Tools development, and innovated Pro Tools connectivity in a live sound console with VENUE. Onboard effects remove the need for third-party plug-in runners (possible points of failure) and removes the need for bulky, costly outboard racks. S6L is the only live

Could you talk through some of key features that were included in the new model? S6L provides the following differentiating capabilities. It provides an outstanding sound quality due to an enhanced preamp design, in unprecedented power process and a truly integrated plug-in platform providing unmatched sonic possibilities with more simultaneous onboard 78

AVID VENUE | S6L

Opposite: The Avid VENUE S6L. Below: Some of the S6L current users including including Steve McCale for Elvis Costello Monitors and Greg Price for Black Sabbathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s FOH.

sound console that provides an onboard plug-in ecosystem. S6L users can mix with the same sound processors used in top studios or recreate an artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s signature studio sound live. Because S6L directly supports Avid and third-party 64-bit AAX DSP plug-ins, users have far more creative choices at their fingertips than any other live mixing system.

are primarily impressed by the sound quality, ease of use and processing capabilities. A list of users can be found on the Avid web blog. Have there been any updates since the release? Since release in November 2015 we have done 7 software releases, not including maintenance releases for bug fixing. S6L launched with VENUE 5.0 software, we are now on VENUE 5.5. Each software release introduces new features that expand the capabilities of the console. Features introduced since launch include; support for 3 Stage 64 I/O racks, I/O sharing with Avid True Gain, 128-track Pro Tools record/playback via Ethernet AVB, 128-track Pro Tools record/playback via Ethernet AV.B. Other updates include Dante I/O option card for Stage 64 rack, MADI I/O option card for E6L engine, support for 4 HDX-192 mix engine cards (for plug-in processing), spill modes for output masters, multiple custom fader layouts, and a range of surface and software operational enhancements. TPi Photo courtesy of Avid www.avid.com

Did you include any audio engineers in the R&D process? We work very closely with leading audio engineers when gathering design and workflow requirements, and when we come to validate designs. Robert Scovill (Tom Petty) and Robb Allan (Massive Attack, Manic Street Preachers) are Avid employees in the design team for S6L. They are leading live engineers who are instrumental in the design direction of the system. Lead Product Designer, Ryan John, is himself a live engineer. We continue to work closely with a range of leading live sound engineers and theatre sound designers. What has been the initial feedback to the console? S6L has received a fantastic response from the live sound market. Users

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INTERVIEW

BEAT THE STREET’S JOERG PHILLIP

BEAT THE STREET AT 25:

RULING THE ROADS WITH ROCK ‘N’ ROLL SINCE 1992

In the quiet Austrian town of Fritzens, just outside of Innsbruck, the touring industry’s best-known bussing company is preparing to celebrate 25 years in business. Kel Murray flew to the picturesque mountainside location to meet Founder Joerg Philipp and his trusted team to discuss how a punk rock pipe dream somehow led to global acclaim...

“How was your flight? The turbulence in Innsbruck was so bad when I took off the other day, I honestly thought I was going to die. I was like ‘that’s it, I’m gone!’” exclaimed Philipp. Now, of all the ways you imagine the head of the touring industry’s luxury busses to go out, a commercial flight in his tiny hometown probably isn’t top of the list. Looking back over a quarter of a century into a career more likely to be found in an independent film script than in these tourist clad alps, Joerg Philipp is somewhat of a reluctant businessman. In 1992 Philipp purchased a disused school bus, for what he estimates was around £1,000GBP, the rest, as they say, is rock ‘n’ roll history. “In the beginning I worked as a driver, doing local shows for punk bands who were travelling through. I thought to myself ‘this is fun & it doesn’t feel like a job… so it’s what I want to do!’ In the early days Philipp and his team of core drivers - whom he cites as being “very important to the company, some of them have been with me for over 20 years and now do some of the most important jobs in the office” - worked with a lot of New York hardcore punk bands. “There would be days when we’d have 3 bands together on one bus; we only had 12 bunks but we’d have 18 people on board with guys sleeping in the corridor in sleeping bags placed over the backline! It was a different era. It was a really fun time, but it was a totally different time. It certainly wasn’t classed as a business: we lived in the moment, for the moment and that was all there was to it,” he smiled. There’s a genuine sense of fond affection in his voice. It would be hard to imagine Philipp in those DIY settings as he sits in his glass office, surrounded by too many TPi Awards to count, if it wasn’t for the fact 81

BEAT THE STREET’S JOERG PHILLIP

that he’s incredibly down to earth; his no bullshit approach to every important than the bus itself, is the bus driver. He needs to know the job, conversation still rings true. Some early Beat The Street clients include but he also needs to have the right attitude. When a driver is out there, I punk heavyweights Agnostic Front and Slapshot, but the company’s very can’t control him. He’s out there on the frontline for us, and he needs to first clients are still very much part of the family. “Our first client actually represent this company, and me, in the way we’d hope. Our clients also performed for our 20th anniversary… I think it’s obvious that we like to need people on call who are reachable 24/7. That’s a big thing for them. For keep our relationships going,” he noted. The performer was Jango Edwards, example, if there is a problem and we need a new part sending to Italy on a who brought his ‘clown rock’ antics to the school bus, just before Mothers Sunday afternoon, we’ll get it there. If we can’t, we’ll get you to a hotel and Finest, a funk rock outfit from Atlanta. “Mothers Finest are coming here to pay for it. We’ve promised to get you from A to B and to be your home from play on our 25th anniversary party which we’re really excited about. I think home so that’s our duty when you book with us.” they’re going to tell a few stories about those days…” There’s a lengthy driver training plan too: “When we take on new drivers Speaking of ‘those days’, word of this touring fun bus spread quickly they work as part of double driving shifts; they don’t just get their own bus during the bygone era of pre H&S bus partying. “Once we got going on the straight away. They need to learn on the job, the way we like to work. It’s road, word of mouth sort of took over for us. We became known as ‘the important that we get to know them in various scenarios such as when it’s guys with the pink punk rock bus’ and before we knew it, lots of bands an easy spring tour schedule, as well as when it’s extremely tough during were interested in us.” Oh yes, that’s the other thing, these 18-men-strong the summer festival season where they camp behind the main stage and sleepover clubs would happen in a bright pink vehicle, juxtaposing its tough are under stress and pressure to get to the next country.” looking members... “We had to buy more buses. After the third or fourth As of 2017, the BTS fleet of busses stands at an impressive 100, with 160 bus, it was always a financial struggle for us to keep going but we had to drivers currently on the books. The record number of buses out on one invest in them, and pay everyone’s wages. I’d say we struggled until around tour was a cool 19, and another artist even had some shipped to Australia ‘97 / ‘98. We hired an accountant and he just looked at me and said, “you so as not to disturb the road comfort acquired with these luxury road need to be careful, you can’t go on like this or you’ll end up owing so much homes. In short, the days of DIY punk bands are long gone; this is a highthat you’ll wind up in jail!” end touring vendor and its buses are enough to In the late 90s Philipp & his team, empahsis make you think about selling your bricks in favour on the word team “I couldn’t have done any of of a life on wheels. this without them,” he noted, were able to turn While the ethos behind quality and the page, and a viable business was born. “We reassurance has stayed true for Philipp, the became successful after that wake-up call! I industry he works in has changed dramatically. didn’t have a high standard of living, and every H&S, for one, is mandatory. From legal driving bit of money that came through the doors was breaks, to visas and bus etiquette, the list goes “We’ve actually had quite a being invested right back into the buses. They on. But through it all, Philipp has remained ‘one are our livelihood. I think to this day we probably of the guys’, never faltering in remembering few father-son combinations still invest more in our vehicles than any other why this company was established. And I say working here, which I think is company doing what we do. We’re always that with absolute sincerity; walking around progressing. the workshop areas - which are brimming with the biggest compliment you “We never cut corners and we do everything teams of painters, carpenters and mechanics can get in a company.” in our power to maintain that brand new look. - there’s an abundance of mutual respect. That’s what our clients expect. But even more It’s this, perhaps, which has served as a main Joerg Phillip 82

BEAT THE STREET’S JOERG PHILLIP

ingredient for Philipp’s eventual success; as much as people want to use his services, people also want to work for him. He makes a point of getting the entire office to stop and eat together in the purpose-built canteen, the in-house chef cooking up local produce for the daily family sit-down. “That interaction is important. How do you know how everyone’s day is going if you don’t sit down and ask them? I don’t single out superstars here, it’s the purely a team effort. I look after people because I expect them to look after me as well, or look after the company, I should say. It’s the same thing I guess! It’s imperative that you listen to your staff because these people are your people, your family. We’ve actually had quite a few father-son combinations working here over the years, which I think is the biggest compliment you can get in a company. If a guy feels that when his son comes of age, he’d be happy to send him through the doors, I know we’re doing something right. We call them the ‘home-growns’,” he laughed. “The proof is right here, Austria isn’t exactly the heart of rock ‘n’ roll, but my guys have helped change that a little bit. “Once upon a time, people would ask me ‘How come a company from Austria does bussing for the biggest names in the rock and pop world ?’ Well, you know what? They don’t question it any more, they expect it. We had to work extra hard at the start, as an Austrian vendor, to get to where we are

now, but a lot of that was because we learnt the values of this industry from some very respected names, from production managers who have gone down in the history books. “In the most positive sense I’ve learnt that if you’re going to do a job, do the job well, do it great in fact. Take pride in it. Everybody fucks up now and then, but humility is key. Sometimes you have to hold your hands up & say ‘it was my fault!’ When you see people do that, that’s when you know you can trust them in business.” To celebrate the longevity of this successful thinking, BTS is hosting its 25th birthday party in its Fritzens HQ. Philipp looks excited as he reveals the plans... And I’m guessing it’s not because he knows what flavour the cake will be. “We’re going to have live bands and put a video screen up so that we can tell stories! There will be catering too; it’s going to be a really nice time with our friends!” This, I tell him, sounds like a fun party to attend. “Oh it will be, but you have to promise me one thing… last time we partied until 6am, so this year we have to make sure we finish even later.” With this team in tow, would you dare argue with 25 years of rock ‘n’ roll royalty? TPi www.beatthestreet.net

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FESTIVAL FOCUS

Photos courtesy of Fanatic Live: Richard Johnson, Andrew Whitton, Gobinder Jhitta, Jenna Foxton, Carolina Faruolo www.fanaticcreative.com

PARKLIFE Manchester’s annual festival extravaganza once again took place in Heaton Park with headliners including The 1975 and Frank Ocean. TPi meets some of the crew who tackled the extreme weather and brought their production skills to the forefront to make the event run as smoothly as possible...

DBNAUDILE Fresh from the merger early this year, dbnAudile and its 60+ crew were out in force across the Parklife site providing audio and lighting services for all 9 stages. Both sides of the company had been involved with the festival even before they joined forces, in the early days when it was hosted at Platt Fields Park, Rusholme. “I guess you could say it was one of the advantages of the merger,” stated dbnAudile’s Pete Robinson, who took on the role of Lighting Project Manager for the festival. “Previously Audile had handled three of the stages with dbn handling the remaining 5 stages. Now we have all lighting and audio under one roof, which makes logistics much easier.” For audio, dbnAudile provided a complete d&b audiotechnik PA for the main stage. “It was a fairly standard festival PA set up,” stated Rob Ashworth, Director of Audio, who worked alongside dbnAudile’s Stev, Head of Audio for Parklife. The main stage system consisted of 32 d&b J8’s, 4 J12’s and 18 J-SUBs. For centre fills, outer hangs and lip fills, 24 d&b V8’s were deployed. Finally for control, dnbAudile provided an Avid Profile console. “The major challenge came with Frank Ocean’s headline set, with his production looking to produce a surround sound system,” continued Ashworth. “It was an ambitious project and one they had only put together once before during a performance in Denmark.” Frank Ocean’s vendor Eight Day Sound provided the further d&b kit required to populate four towers in the audience area, this being installed overnight together with a large quantity of additional production and staging. Ashworth went on to state some further highlights on the audio side of the festival. “Personally one of the highlights was the Palm House stage. From the beginning Parklife had requested an old-school PA system, with big stacks rather than a modern line array. Stev chose to go with a d&b C4 system with B22 subs, and had the grilles removed from the C4 boxes to enhance the old-school aesthetic. It really looked the part, and sounded

Rob Ashworth great too driven with D80 amplifiers. It was nice to do something different, and to know that there is plenty of life left in a classic system.” With the festival containing 9 stages, audio spill was always an inevitable issue. “It’s something you can never really get away from on a site like this especially when there are this many stages,” stated Ashworth. “However, every year we’ve pushed the importance of scheduling, such as not putting quiet acts on at the same time as loud ones in adjacent arenas, which I think was managed really well this year. There was also a useful switch of the festival site, moving the Sounds of The Near Future stage, which host most of the festival live acts, away from some of the other stages, cutting down on spill from the more dance artists.” Moving away from audio, Robinson talked about some of the lighting talking points from this year’s Parklife: “For the main stage we had a fairly malleable setup so as to cater for the various headline acts and the productions they brought in as well as interesting enough rig for the LDs further down the bill.” On the rig were a selection of Claypaky fixtures including Mythos, Sharpys, A.leda B-EYEs and Stormy strobes. Robinson went on to state some of his other highlights from this year’s event. “Each year the ambition of the production always increases. When 84

we first moved to Heaton Park there was a real effort to give the Temple stage a signature look with unique decor and lighting elements. This year our focus was on the Warehouse Project Stage.” The resulting look of the show involved 250sqm of LED panels throughout the design along with six individual LED panels being mounted on a Kinesys system. “dbnAudile’s Nick Buckley completely redesigned this year’s stage to include the ambitions six trackable LED pods,” commented Robinson who handled the Kinesys operations during the weekend. He continued: “Throughout the day we utilised the automation by changing the position of the LED panels effectively altering the set for each of the artists performing on the stage. Then during the headline set with Carl Cox we really went for it

with continual moving automation. The reaction from the audience was fantastic and as soon as the set got going, all the mobiles were out filming the various moving elements.” However, as is tradition with the annual festival season, extreme weather was a factor that dbnAudile had to contend with. “Wind was the real challenge on this one,” commented Ashworth. “At one point we had gusts of up to 35mph and we were on standby ready to create exclusion zones around the main PA’s. But Parklife’s extreme weather plan is robust and we are ready for most situations, continuing to make the annual event a resounding success.” www.dbnaudile.co.uk

Brilliant event lighting, sound & rigging www.dbnAudile.co.uk 0161 273 4297 8 Downing Street Industrial Estate, Charlton Place Manchester M12 6HH @dbnAudile

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TRANSITION VIDEO Middlesex’s Transition Video handled the LED requirements for 7 stages across the Parklife site. “We had a large presence this year,” commented Rhodri Shaw, Director at Transition Video. “In total we had 7 artic trucks of video equipment come to the site along with 30 dedicated Transition crewmembers.” Shaw went on to list some of the services Transition supplied: “For the main stage we supplied 2 ROE MC-7H 7mm LED IMAG screens along with the broadcast PPU. Also out on the Main Stage were 5 HD cameras including a 26ft Jimmy jib crane for aerial shots.” The company also provided and additional 4 IMAG that were hung in an arc in line with FOH. For the main stage Transition also provided additional kit for Frank Ocean’s Sunday headline set. “His production requested a 16m x 6m upstage LED screen with a trackable system to allow it move downstage within minutes.” Away from the main stage, Transition provided all the LED elements for dbnAudile’s ambitious LED automation package for the Warehouse Project stage. “The stage had 6 flown screen sections measuring a 3.36m x 4.48m rigged on the Kinesys system,” discussed Shaw. “After several production

Rhodri Shaw meetings, product rigging reports and safety checks we came up with an appropriate rigging method that allowed us to archive the design. There were also an additional 30 LED screens surrounded the space, which created a 360 degree immersive experience.” For the Sounds of the Near Future stage, Transition Video deployed an 8.4 x 4.8m ROE MC-7H screen with 2 additional 16ft by 9ft IMAG projection screens as well as the 3 HD camera package. However, due to the inevitable large crowds that Stormzy’s headline was predicted to attract, production requested additional video equipment. Shaw said: “In the end we supplied an extra LED screen trailer which we parked behind FOH which proved essential as the tent was full to capacity with many having to make do by standing out side.” www.transitionvideo.com

ER PRODUCTIONS Adding some drama with an extensive laser package to several stages at Parklife was ER Productions. The company’s co-founder, Ryan Hagan expressed that when it came to the laser packages he wanted to do more than your conventional special effects set up. “During our first discussions with PM Ryan Esson, one of our main goals was to really push the creative boundaries of what many would expect from a generic show,” he explained. “For example, we incorporated laser mapping on the Temple stage while on the Pyramid dance structure we installed a powerful green OPS system projecting into the sky. Both elements that would not conventionally be seen on a festival site.” Hagan went on to explain some of the technical challenges with providing lasers during a festival performance. “With festivals you don’t have any rehearsal time to plan looks making it essential that you use a skilled, instinctive and a creative operator who can deliver the desired effects quickly. ER has a long-standing relationship with many of the artists and designers we provided fixtures for with an already good understanding of their requirements in advance. For example, we often work with Mark Ward from Proper Productions on Fatboy Slim’s shows and provided an old school laser design using array mirrors at Parklife.”

For the Hangar stage, ER provided 4 of its new Storm Lasers, a small light-weight 15W RGB and a mirror package with an additional 2 Storms used to map the Temple stage. “Laser mapping is a quick and effective way of bringing a stage to life by highlighting its architecture and we were really pleased with what got to include this year,” concluded Hagan. www.er-productions.com 86

CATO MUSIC Offering backline options for several of the stages was Cato Music. “Our involvement came about after a meeting with the festival’s Production Manager, Ryan Esson and Cato’s newly appointed General Manger Ant Forbes,” commented Sam Wilkinson, Cato’s Touring and Festival Coordinator. “Ryan was looking for a backline supplier for Parklife, which we offered to run on site, facilitating the festival equipment for Cato North’s base in Production Park, Wakefield. “As well as this service, we also ran an on-site pro shop for the various artists throughout the event. It was a mixture of people needing cables, connectors and spare parts to making emergency repairs. We also had

a few artists purchasing Peli cases to streamline their festival flypacks and even some crew killing some time to check out the new Leatherman multi-tool.” As well as supplying permanent backline to three of the stages and keeping a plentiful stock for the remaining 6 stages, Cato was given an additional challenge. Wilkinson explained: “Frank Ocean had plugged his US Roland Juno 106 and his Wurlitzer into a European power source the night before Parklife at a previous festival. This meant the day before we had to source one which thankfully we had at our London base which we transported overnight.” www.catomusic.co.uk

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21/07/2017 17:05

LOVEBOX

PIONEER PRO AUDIO AT LOVEBOX More than 100,000 people attended the annual Lovebox festival in London’s Victoria Park. Primarily focussed on electronic, dance and hip hop, Lovebox has expanded year-on-year since its inception as a club night hosted by Groove Armada back in 2002. Having grown to a large multi-stage event, the responsibility to deliver the best possible experience to customers is not taken lightly and getting the audio right is

Pro Audio Manager, Alex Barrand explained: “It’s not just about making some noise! We did a lot of careful preparation for Lovebox in order to ensure that we achieve optimal speaker placement. There are all kinds of considerations to be made, from the size of the space itself to the materials used in the construction of the tent - everything affects the audio quality and as anyone familiar with fabric knows, there is simply no compromise where sound is concerned. Before and during the performances we continued to monitor and tweak the system to make sure that everything was spot on.” The consistently full fabric tent proved a major hit at Lovebox, the system earning plaudits from every quarter and for Barrand, further demonstrating the adaptability and flexibility essential for the live and touring market. He said: “XY-3B has been and is being used across a full range of events this summer, taking in a variety of genres. This is an important process as each real-world experience enables us to be certain that the pre-sets for each system we deliver match the requirements of the application. The sonic requirements of different types of festival contrast sharply with those of an electronic dance music event, so the data we obtain during this period will mean our customers get the best possible results.” Photos: Maren Adsero www.pioneerproaudio.com http://loveboxfestival.com

high on the list of essentials. A great example of this was to be found at the fabric tent at Lovebox, where Pioneer Pro Audio was on hand to re-create the club’s fantastic atmosphere for sets by top DJs such as Terry Francis, Kink, Seth Troxler and Ricardo Villalobos. Pioneer Pro Audio’s XY Series speakers were installed into fabric’s Room Two last year to great acclaim from owners, performers and clubbers and so it was a natural progression to employ the company’s new XY-3B system, an extension of the installed version, at the festival. XY3B has been developed for the festival and touring market and is effectively being road-tested at a variety of events this summer before its general release onto the market later this year. The iconic club settles for nothing less than audio perfection as Pioneer

ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL

WIGWAM AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL Wigwam Hire was once again on site at Seaclose Park, in the Isle of Wight to provide the audio backbone for the Main and Big Top stages. This year marked the 15th year since the revival of the Isle of Wight festival. Attracting crowds of up to 58,000 festivalgoers, this year’s headline acts included the likes of David Guetta, Arcade Fire and Rod Stewart. For the main stage, Wigwam deployed a complete Meyer Sound system with a d&b Audiotechnik PA for the Big Top stage. For the Main Stage, 28 boxes (2 hangs of 14) of Meyer Sound LEO with 24 1100 Subs in a cardioid configuration were hung with 4 delay towers comprising of 32 Lyon and Lyon W. The in and out fill were made up of Meyer Leopard Boxes. Joel Perry Account Manager for Wigwam’s concert touring productions, discussed the decision to deploy the Meyer Sound system. “The LEO provides excellent coverage in that particular environment. It was the second year we have used it for the festivals, which develops continuity, and under the sometimes testing conditions of the island the efficiency and coverage is exceptional. Sonically the performance is second to none and given we have pretty much all guest engineers on our Main Stage FOH, there is a general feeling that the adjustment to the system is swift, which removes some of the immediate considerations.” Perry went on to explain how Wigwam really benefited from Meyer’s off-site SPL measurements, which ensured that the concert adhered to the noise level restrictions for the arena. For the festival’s second stage Wigwam continued its long-standing partnership with d&b audiotechnik. As well as providing 24 d&b M2 wedges

onstage in a variety of configurations, Wigwam also played host to d&b’s new beta field test for the manufacturer’s new sound system. For control on the Main Stage and the Big Top two Avid Profiles were flip-flopped between engineers who did not bring along their own. Meanwhile in monitor world, 2 Yamaha PM5-D’s were provided. Perry gave his final thoughts on the event: “In total we provided 23 crew for both the Main and Big Top stages who did an amazing job. It’s safe to say the event was a resounding success, which is a testament to the level of aptitude of our crew.” Photos: Joel Perry www.sseaudiogroup.com/ Wigwam/Hire www.isleofwightfestival.com

BUXTON INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

PRG XL VIDEO SUPPLIES BUXTON INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2017 Hosted in the idyllic spa town of Buxton, huddled within the breathtaking landscape of the Peak District National Park; the Buxton International Festival is a celebration of theatrical and literary excellence which attracts speakers, acts and audiences in coveted numbers. PRG XL Video supported Lighting Designer Mike Gunning, and Production Electrician Tim Ball, with a theatrical lighting package for the three operas headlining this year’s festival at the Buxton Opera House: Verdi’s Macbeth, Britten’s Albert Herring, and Mozart’s Lucio Silla. Although its heritage can be traced farther back, the current format of the Buxton Festival has been running since the refurbishment of the opera house in 1979 - and has grown to become the highly respected cultural event it is today. Drawing crowds from far and wide, patrons of the Buxton Festival know what they want to see, and what they don’t. Tim Ball explained: “The prestige of the productions we put on at Buxton need to be of the highest standard, our audiences expect our offerings to rival anything that may be seen at the big opera houses in capital cities around the world.” Ball has been closely involved with the festival for over 15 years, and describes the 17-day event as one of the highlights of his year. He discussed what it takes to oversee the practicalities of lighting three operas in rep at a festival like Buxton: “One of the biggest challenges we face is the schedule - we begin our load in on Monday morning and by Tuesday evening we need to be ready for the first rehearsal. This timeframe would be tight for fitting up one show, but we are essentially hanging three different rigs concurrently. With practicality in mind, we opted to use moving lights where possible, rather than purely generic lighting fixtures - that way we can have a compact and manageable rig with less time spent refocussing between shows.” Mike Gunning was appointed to the role of Lighting Designer for all three operas, and explained how he approached the project: “I started off by looking at each opera individually, drawing in the lighting fixtures need to achieve the specific lighting looks for each production, I then added a number of supplementary generic lights, which would be used for all three shows.” For each opera, Gunning worked with different designers and directors. “Macbeth is a traditional grand opera - like one would expect to see in Covent Garden, or at The Coliseum. Designer Russell Craig created an asymmetric set with slanted walls, which uses a lot of red and dark blues. I use powerful and moody lighting to help tell the story, lighting large parts of the opera from the side - creating big, dramatic shadows. I’m very pleased with what we’ve done for Macbeth.” Gunning emphasised that the three operas are very different from each other, so much so that for those watching all three productions, wouldn’t believe they were lit by the same lighting designer. He continued his insight into lighting the operas at this year’s Buxton Festival: “Albert Herring is a very British opera, lit in a classical and naturalistic way - it’s set in a conservatory, a shop, a street and a town hall. I used a lot of tungsten

lighting to make it look realistic. The lighting and set for Lucio Silla is a lot more abstract. The set comprises of three large steel walls, with a very thin gauze stretched over them and is back-lit using GLP impression LED wash lights, whose shift in colours reflect the changing moods of the different arias in the opera. The design for Silla is all about the interpretation between the floor and walls, and how they interact with each other to define the scene and space within which the opera is set.” Gunning’s choice of lighting fixtures is a modest inventory - very cleverly used to achieve a subtly dramatic effect. The rig comprises of Vari-Lite VL1000 A/S and Martin by Harman MAC TW1 moving lights, with GLP impression RZ LED wash lights and a selection of ETC Source Four generic lights, some of which are fitted with coloured scrollers to add some variation to the acting lights at the front. All three operas are predominantly lit from above and the side, with Gunning cautious of using too much front light, for fear of flattening out the looks on stage. In-house Strand followspots are used delicately and sparingly throughout the shows. Gunning was assisted by Lighting Programmer Ian Wilson, who used an ETC EOS lighting console to program the lights, before transferring the show files to an ION for the run. Wilson has worked at the festival for more than 10 years, and explained how he and Gunning are working together on this year’s productions: “Working with Mike is brilliant, he’s got a very clear idea of what he wants to do. During programming, he gave the creative direction, and I worked out how to achieve it using the console. Everything has been programmed on site, I will be here until the opening nights, after which I hand over to show crew to operate the lights during the run.” Gunning originally came from an opera lighting background, but has lit a variety of genres within the theatre and concert touring repertoire. “I try to tell the story with light, the shifts in lighting are more driven by emotion than logic. Lighting opera is no easier or harder than lighting rock n roll, you listen to the music and interpret what you hear. It’s not that difficult.” Whilst the Opera House is the epicentre of activities taking place during the festival, other events will be held at various venues around the town. Other notable dates to look forward to over the next few weeks include presentations by esteemed authors such as: Tony Robinson, Chris Patten, Vince Cable, David Starkey, Jeremy Paxman and a catalogue of other well-known names from within the literary, history and political spheres. There is an extensive agenda of concerts, walks, talks and tours around the splendorous spa town. Additionally, Buxton has its own fringe festival, which is widely regarded as being the biggest in the UK after Edinburgh. 2016’s Buxton Fringe Festival featured nearly 500 performances from 150 entrants. PRG XL Account Director, Jon Cadbury, oversaw our involvement supplying lighting for the Opera House: “This is our second year supporting the festival, we couldn’t be happier - it’s great to be involved with such a creative and culturally diverse production. Tim and Mike have exceptionally high standards, and know exactly what the need to make things happen. It’s a pleasure working with them!” Photos: Matt Rakowski & Robert Workman www.prg.com www.buxtonfestival.co.uk 90

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UTOPIUM ILLUMINATES BACK TO BACK BRISTOL WEEKENDS

Utopium supplied a range of lighting, rigging, staging and screens to create an electric atmosphere in Bristol’s Lloyds Amphitheatre for two consecutive weekends in July 2017. Utopium was entrusted to create the perfect setting for thousands of musiclovers when Bristol Sounds (21-24 June) and Grillstock (1-2 July), headed to Bristol’s iconic Harbourside. Both weekends welcomed some impressive music performances from the likes of Bonobo, Craig David and The Manic Street Preachers at Bristol Sounds and Pharcyde, The Darkness and Hot 8 Brass Band at Grillstock. With different stages in different positions and an eclectic variety of genres on offer over the course of the two events, Utopium had to be creative and astute when creating its base concert lighting systems for each event. For Bristol Sounds, Utopium utilised a range of new equipment, which included Martin by Harman Sceptron VDO 10 LED 1m video battens, an Avolites Pearl Tiger Touch 2 and a Green Hippo Hippotizer Amba. Along with new kit, Utopium also supplied Q-7 LED Flood/Blinder/Strobes, Martin by Haman MAC Quantum LED Profiles, MAC Aura XB LED Washs, Chauvet Rogue RH1 Hybrids and 4-Lite Molefays. The team also supplied main stage rigging in the form of 9m and 6m lighting trusses flown using Prolyft Double braked hoists, 9m drapes truss and 10m video wall truss flown using Prolyft Double braked hoists. To control the lighting Utopium supplied an ArtNet networking system, an Avolites ART 2000 Dimmer, power distribution and a wysiwyg system to enable touring LDs to pre-program or tweak their designs. The team also

provided a floor package for Bonobo that consisted of six lighting towers which incorporated Chauvet Rogue RH1 Hybrids, Chauvet Q-Wash 419z LED washes, Chauvet Rogue FX-Bs, 4-Lite molefays and 2-Lite molefays. The team also designed and delivered architectural lighting to illuminate the Lloyds Amphitheatre building with colour changing uplighters. To create the perfect atmosphere at Grillstock, Utopium kitted out not just the main stage, but also the King of the Grill stage, Weber’s demo stand and the main bar, as well as providing festoon lighting across the site. For the main stage, the team provided a flown lighting system and floor package, which included Martin by Harman MAC Aura XB LED Washs, MAC Quantum LED Profiles, Chauvet Rogue RH1 Hybrids, SGM Q-7 LED Flood/ Blinder/Strobes, 4-Lite molefays and LED Starcloth to dress the back of the stage. In addition, Utopium engaged with Production AV to supply event screens and cameras, including a 6.4m x 3.4m video wall for the main stage, cameras for the relay of images to the screen, studio channels for use at the FOH and on stage, full HD camcorders for use as locked off shots on stage, a full HD PPU with all the control hardware and a Vision mixer operator to control the mix and direct the cameras. For the Weber stall, the team supplied two plasma screens with a camera and operator. Utopium’s Jon Newman commented: “Being a Bristol-based company it’s great to be involved in two brilliant events on our home soil, which are both two great dates in the summer festival calendar. These shows were the perfect opportunity to put our new products to great use, enabling us to offer increased creativity to the incoming lighting designers, and impressive light-shows to the thousands of music-lovers who attended.” Photo: Plaster Creative Communications www.utopium.co.uk www.bristolsounds.co.uk https://grillstock.co.uk 92

IHEARTCOUNTRY FESTIVAL

I HEARTCOUNTRY FESTIVAL BRINGS DOWN THE HOUSE WITH RADIO ACTIVE DESIGNS

The 2017 iHeartCountry Festival drew more than 15,000 country music fans to the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. They were lined up to hear an impressive lineup of country music stars including Jason Aldean, Little Big Town, Dierks Bentley, Rascal Flatts and Darius Rucker. Redhook, New York/Las Vegas-based Firehouse Productions ensured flawless production during the day-long event with the help of Radio Active Designs wireless intercom systems. Firehouse Productions provided sound reinforcement, wireless hardware, frequency coordination and communication for the production. The festival featured a rotating stage, which translates into non-stop music for the fans and non-stop activity for the production crew. Vinny Siniscal, wireless communications coordinator, utilised four Radio Active Designs UV-1G base stations distributing the 24 RAD packs to stage managers, lighting technicians, and others involved in the production process. “The idea was to leave as much open bandwidth as possible to accommodate the performer’s needs,” he explained. “That means the less bandwidth we use for ourselves, the better off we are. Being able to use the UV-1G intercoms, which operate primarily in VHF, was key to our plan. I’m honestly not sure how we would have managed without it.” In total, there were 400 channels of wireless used for the event. There were 200+ in play for the bands, which carry up to 20 channels of wireless including micraphones, in-ears, IFBs and comms. Approximately 190 channels were used for production. Considering the constant rotation of bands, channels were in flux throughout the event. In addition to the UV-1G freeing up valuable UHF bandwidth, the units also are loud enough to use in a live sound, arena environment. A recent firmware upgrade ensures that everyone using the system can hear other members of the team without fail. “It is really impressive how loud the comms are,” added Siniscal. “Even at an arena show like this, we could hear each other. The new amp circuit makes it so that you can hear the intercom, even when performers insist upon 110dB. I know I can hear guys on the other end of the system.” The UV-1G units provided one zone of coverage for the arena. Siniscal deployed two antennae - one for backstage and the other for the exterior to extend intercom coverage to those areas. Siniscal concluded: “Personally, I’m not waiting for 600 MHz to go away, I’m starting now and assuming it is already gone. Getting comms out of UHF is going to be imperative for large events. RAD provides the solution.” http://news.iheart.com/featured/iheartcountry-festival/ www.ststouring.co.uk 93

GARDEN BEATS FESTIVAL

ROBE ENJOYS THE GARDEN BEATS Craig Burridge designed the lighting for the second Garden Beats Festival in Singapore’s Fort Canning Park.

Organised by Sunshine Nation in Singapore’s Fort Canning park, The Garden Beat once again returned to provide a selection of electric artists across the weekend. Lighting Designer for the festival, Craig Burridge included a mix of Robe products on his plot including 24 Linees, 6 ColorStrobes and 6 LEDBlinder 148 LTs, all of which contributed to a lively and colourful scheme for the one day event for which the lighting vendor was locally based CSP Productions Pte. Burridge’s main objective was to have a flexible and adaptable rig to provide good general stage, set and audience lighting for the line-up of dance orientated artists - with a few surprises up his sleeve! The 9m x 8m stage was fitted beneath a 10m x 9m ground-supported roof structure with 10m of headroom which had to be squeezed in between a selection of heritage trees which grace the park, allowing the organisers to maximise the audience space. The stage and DJ booth was clad in wood pieces and other natural materials which took the light well, and the view through the stage to the back was of one specific heritage tree that Burridge knew would look awesome. The client brief specifically requested that the lighting not resemble a club as they were keen to emphasis the whole Garden Beats event as a unique once-only ‘for-the-moment’ experience, rather than something that can be repeated and replicated.

The general theme and mood of the festival is bright and colourful, so Burridge took that into account. He also wanted to use a full LED rig to keep the power requirements and the carbon footprint low, so there were just two conventional source beam lights dedicated to the mirror ball. Twelve of the 24 Linees were rigged onto 4 3m high vertical truss towers, with the other 12 on the front and mid over stage trusses. In each case they were outrigged from the trusses to maximise the effect of their continuous pan / tilt rotation. The wide slice of light emitted from the fixture or the single pixel beam looks gave Burridge plenty of variation. “The Linee gives a completely different shape which is a nice change from classic spots and beams and as we were looking for something different for this gig, they worked brilliantly,” he confirmed. The stage was illuminated with LEDPARs from the trusses which were focussed directly downwards, leaving latitude for the Linees to work as effects. The ColorStrobes and LEDBlinder 148’s were also positioned on the front and mid trusses, where they were ideal for colouring the audience. The ColorStrobes added a punchy wash fixture to the tool box as well as their more obviously ‘standard’ functionality as a strobe. Burridge programmed and ran lighting for all the artists himself, assisted by JoAnne Yee. This was not the first time that Burridge had used Robe products having over 10 years experience with the brand. “Robe have some really great products,” he commented stating that he recently lit shows with Robe’s BMFL Blades. Photos: Colossal Photos www.gardenbeats.com www.robe.cz 94

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HENLEY FESTIVAL

NEW MLA FLOATING DESIGN IS A BIG SUCCESS AT HENLEY FESTIVAL

The five-day Henley Festival, featuring a celebration of UK and international music, comedy and the arts, continued it ascendancy by pulling in over 25,000 people this year. The event itself dates back to 1983, and as its longest-serving contractor RG Jones Sound Engineering was again chosen to deliver the PA system with John Harris as Production Manager and Jim Lambert as Technical Manager. Once again it fielded Martin Audio’s premium MLA Compact system - a winning formula for the main Floating Stage over the Thames, which has a difficult audience profile to cover, being only 30m from front to back but over 80m wide due to the festival taking over the site from the Royal Regatta the week immediately prior. And with a change of stage this year, RG Jones’ Simon Honywill - himself a Henley stalwart who was first involved as far back as 1984 - was quickly onsite to design a new PA arrangement to maximise coverage for the principal stage. It was here that All Saints and Melanie C performed on the closing Sunday night in a throwback to the ‘90s, following an all-star cast that included Pet Shop Boys, Jess Glynne, Chaka Khan, Ruby Turner and Goldie. A large section of the Floating Stage audience is seated in the main grandstand inherited from the Regatta, and the low roof over these premium seats meant the PA had to be flown at low level to be able to fire up under the roof and reach the back rows. The system design consisted of 3 hangs of MLA Compact per side. Unconventionally, the outfills of 9 cabinets were significantly bigger than the main left and right PA hangs, each featuring seven MLA Compact. This was down to the fact that the outfills had a lot more work to do than the mains, with the audience spreading out to 80m each side of the stage. The main hangs had only to fire 30m to reach the rear of the grandstand however, and the left / right infills of 4 MLA Compact finished the job. Again, due to the restrictions caused by the grandstand roof, the PA had to be

flown very low in order to get up underneath it. The unique capabilities for Martin Audio’s MLA Compact meant, however, that the levels at the front, near the arrays, could be optimised to only 1dB higher than at FOH. “The new stage meant we had better options for the MLX subs - we could stack the subs in a way that was more evenly distributed horizontally,” said Honywill. In previous years production had relied on a left / right configuration of 6 MLX wide in a steered array, but this year they had 2 cardioid blocks set together, 3 high on each side, pointing the sound where they needed it. “This effectively worked as a single source, making it easier to tie everything together coherently and to time delay the sound.” Another key to the success was the deployment of 8 of Martin Audio’s new Blackline X8 as fills under the grandstand roof. “These sounded really good, and what you get for your money is pretty amazing,” he continued. Elsewhere there were 4 other stages or bars featuring live music, three of them (Bedouin, Ronnie Scott’s and Riverside) all featuring Martin Audio PA rigs. MLA Mini was pole mounted with a sub on the Bedouin stage, which featured world music, while at Ronnie Scott’s Bar, where people could dine to a jazz backdrop, 4 MLA Mini enclosures were clamped to the scaffolding. Riverside, meanwhile, had three W8LM, Mini Line Array per side with two WLX subwoofers concealed underneath. Summarising, Simon Honywill said: “Ultimately the new design for the Floating Stage proved to be a vast improvement on what we had previously, and everyone loved it.” He was assisted by RG Jones’ Project Engineer, Jack Bowcher, who took over as FOH Tech and PA overseer on the main stage. He confirmed that the Martin Audio systems had responded well to the heat and humidity to which they had been subjected. “Overall, everyone was very happy with the site coverage and the new sub array was a big success,” he said. “In terms of sound thresholds, we were able to maintain offsite sound limits under 65dB at the nearest location while measuring between 100dB103dB at the FOH desk on the Floating Stage.” www.martin-audio.com. www.rgjones.co.uk 96

Coming soon...

CATEGORIES Best Nightlife Venue Best House of Worship Best Sporting Venue Best Integrated Resort Best Performance Venue Two more categories to be added in 2018

ENTER Look out for the new website coming in Summer 2017 to submit your project for the 2018 Awards www.mondodrawards.com

SPONSORSHIP Want to sponsor the 2018 mondo*dr Awards? drawards@mondiale.co.uk

PSA: THE BIGGER PICTURE

GOOD WORK - A REVIEW REVIEWED I’ll admit it, I get a bit frustrated when it comes to employment status issues. There are people who simply want to have their cake and eat it; they want to be fed, watered, paid by the hour plus expenses yet treat themselves as self-employed when it comes to paying tax. I also get frustrated by companies who want to control when people work and who people work for without any commitment to the individual in terms of employment benefits, as well as avoiding various financial liabilities such as Employer’s National Insurance contributions. Of course, there are the majority of companies that genuinely utilise self-employed subcontractors to provide a service, subcontractors who charge accordingly, manage their business accordingly and comply with all the requirements that ensure their status as self-employed. It’s not difficult.

Not surprisingly, many self-employed people thrive on the flexibility that their employment status brings and will perhaps see any review of practices as a threat. Companies that rely heavily on subcontractors would be keeping an eye on developments after the publication of Good Work, the recently published review of modern working practices referred to by many as the ‘Gig Economy’, just to confuse matters. Yes, they stole our terminology to describe the apparently new phenomenon of people working for companies on a job by job basis, perhaps pitching for work or, if you’re lucky, having several clients fight for your services. That does happen, right? It turns out that the recommendations coming out of the review don’t, on the face of it, pose any great threat to the way our sector operates. The title of the report alludes to the commentary within, that employers and government should recognise the need to deliver meaningful work that offers people opportunities to develop careers rather than sit at home and wait for the next notification. The report itself is not born of any reaction to our notion of a ‘gig’ economy, it’s more about the ‘platform’ based

employers who are operating using technology that has, once again, raced ahead of legislative development. Uber and Deliveroo are the high profile defendants, regularly nipping in and out of the Court of Appeal to clarify rulings and step through a loophole. Good work goes a long way in suggesting a new type of employment status, dependent worker, sitting amongst the current 3 status types; employee, worker and self-employed. Currently workers are somewhere between ‘employee’ and ‘self-employed’. They provide a personal service, but not an exclusive service, can refuse work offered and have basic ‘Employment Law rights’, Dependent workers will still be a ‘worker’, still having to provide a personal service under a contract, but would not be an employee. That’s about as clear as it gets for now, but the likes of Uber and Deliveroo have said that they’re keen to talk about affording their, up to now self-employed contractors, more employment-type rights once legislation catches up. We’ve already spoken about flexibility, it’s one of the key attractions of self-employment. Of course, the benefits of being self-employed have been eroded, especially for those that can cast their minds back to the days of 98

PSA: THE BIGGER PICTURE

tax free overseas earning if the tour was out of the UK for a certain period of time, pretty much guaranteed as the artists were on the same deal. Many are less than excited at the prospect of submitting quarterly tax reports (not full returns, not payments), so the flexibility element is becoming the key benefit. That said, Good Work focuses in part on what they refer to as one-sided flexibility. It goes on to say that “the UK labour market is characterised by flexibility. Individuals and businesses are free to agree terms and conditions that best suit them, within the minimum standards set out in legislation. This is both a strength as well as an obvious risk. One of the points we heard most in our national consultation was concern about the way some employers use this flexibility to transfer risk to, and exert control over, workers. Being able to work when you want is a good thing; not knowing whether you have work from one day to the next when you have bills to pay is not. This section looks at what could be done to improve the situation for the vulnerable workers.” It identifies a number of issues that require examination:

Status. Interesting, though, that the report does suggest that government should “Seek to examine ways in which the tax system might address the disparity between the level of tax applied to employed and self-employed labour.” Considering that, the most interesting chapter heading in Good Work is ‘A New Offer to the Self Employed’, summarised thus: • There are more self-employed people in the UK than ever before. Many are now seizing the opportunities presented by the gig economy to supplement their income through, essentially, self-employed earnings. As such, it is time the government reconsidered how selfemployment is treated and what it can do to support those who choose to be their own boss. In particular, we conclude that: • Government should recognise the wide variety of forms of modern self-employment and should act to support and protect those who need help. More effort should be made to harness the potential of digital platforms to offer support to self-employed people;

• Flexibility in the labour market is important and must be retained in order to keep participation rates high

• Government should focus on encouraging self-employed people to plan for the future, reducing the potential that the taxpayer has to pick up additional costs associated with ill health or inadequate retirement saving.

• Employers must not use flexible working models simply to reduce costs and must consider the impact on their workforce in terms of increased sickness rates and reduced productivity

While many self-employed people would not expect sick pay, paid annual leave or automatic enrolment to a pension, for others, the availability of this safety net is essential to make sure they can pay their rent, put food on the table or plan for the future. This can lead to the same levels of anxiety and illness that are experienced by those employed on casual contracts. The Review believes the government should treat self-employed people like any other section of the labour market, acknowledging that they require a spectrum of intervention, focused at protecting the most vulnerable. It seems from a scan of the 117-page review that the employment models used by companies in our sector are in no way under threat, whether relying on self-employed subbies or employing people on a zero hours or guaranteed minimum hours contract. The methods of tax calculation and accounting for self-employed people is already changing, the advantage being easier reporting without having to give the same information twice, the apparent disadvantage being having to prove that you’re keeping the records that you’ve always been legally obliged to keep. The only conclusion we can draw is that the recognition of vast changes in the employment landscape need addressing, and that the review has noted the potential for unfair advantages to be taken by employers that need to be addressed by both government and industry. We’ll be keeping an eye on reaction and developments. TPi www.psa.org.uk www.mondiale.co.uk/tpi/GoodWorkReport.pdf

• Further consideration should be given to the best way to incentivise employers who take a one sided view of flexibility, encouraging them to use fairer and more responsible models

Of course, we’ve already experienced a change in the rules around employment status since the introduction of intermediary regulation and reporting requirements. Those requirements clearly state that intermediaries, in our case that’s crew companies, must pay workers through PAYE. It seems in that case that we got caught up in legislation designed to prevent companies using overseas registered companies to manage their payroll. Put simply, the client-facing entity providing individuals on a labour only basis on hourly or daily rates is responsible for paying the workers through PAYE. Further to the 2014 intermediary legislation, later regulation requires companies to send quarterly reports of any individuals that they pay as self-employed, giving reasons why. This does only apply to companies providing labour only, if you’re providing kit plus labour, that labour is contracted to provide a service to you rather than your client, that’s not an intermediary relationship. Good, glad that’s clear. In fact, we’re pretty clear about what does and doesn’t constitute a self-employed person in our sector and, until someone comes up with an app that companies can use to hire techs at the push of a button, paying through the app rather than on invoice from the tech, we’re perhaps going to be steering fairly clear of the as-yet-to-be-clarified Dependant Worker

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS

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INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS Ayrton has announced the appointment of Jerad Garza as the latest member of its growing International Sales Team. Garza entered the industry as show technician with Gemini LSV in Dallas where he spent 17 years learning all aspects of show production. Roles in European & International Sales followed, most recently, with High End Systems. Based in Germany, Garza’s role will be to focus on supporting Ayrton’s existing international clients, in addition to establishing new relationships, and will have additional responsibility for selling demo and excess stock worldwide. “Now is an exciting time to join the Ayrton team, and I cannot wait to meet our partners and contribute to their growth and success,” he said: “Ayrton is a brand with a great reputation and I am looking forward to playing my part in upholding that.” “Jerad has a great understanding of the needs of the international market, an exceptional technical knowledge, and a great affinity with the tenets at the heart of Ayrton,” said Ayrton Global Sales Director, Michael Althaus. “The energy and enthusiasm he brings to Ayrton and his determination to ensure our customers receive the best service, means he will be a great addition to the Ayrton team. We are looking forward to having him on board.” Coda Audio has appointed Rich Rowley to the position of Managing Director of the newly created Coda Audio UK. A vastly experienced industry professional, Rowley brings a wealth of technical and commercial expertise to the role, having enjoyed a 30 year career that has endowed him with a comprehensive understanding of the sector. Rowley has spent the last 10 years establishing a deep knowledge of the rental sector across multiple markets and disciplines however the chance to re-engage with pure audio at the highest level proved irresistible. Rowley stated: “The opportunity to take the reins in the UK of a brand that is truly moving the game forward was too good to miss. Overall advancement in loudspeaker technology has been slow in recent years but Coda has bucked this trend and sets a new benchmark. I believe I’ve joined a world class team that is defining the future of professional audio.” Paul Ward, Sales and Marketing Director of Coda Audio is equally enthusiastic: “Rich’s ability to build strong business relationships throughout his career has been the backbone of his extensive commercial success and we’re very pleased to have such a trusted and skilled practitioner leading our UK operation.” GLP has announced the appointment of David Stuart as Sales Manager. An industry veteran with nearly 30 years service, he spent the previous decade with Martin Professional, where he built up a powerful network of key specifiers, lighting designers and rental companies. Starting his career as a Vari-Lite operator, he then enjoyed stints with Stage Electrics, Fusion and Spirit Design. Speaking on GLP, Stuart stated: “The brand is very well known and they were at the forefront of LED moving head technology with their impression series. Aside from their excellent reputation and branding, I liked the idea of working for an independent company where I can make a difference and have a more hands-on approach to developing the next technology.” He also looks forward to being reunited with Mark Ravenhill, who heads up GLP Inc in the States, with whom he previously worked at Martin Professional. “Mark has been a huge influence and I have huge respect for him. We have kept in touch at trade shows and when he approached me about the Sales Manager role the timing seemed perfect.” J&C Joel has announced a new structure for its Projects department. Ben Richardson-Owen, previously Middle East Project Manager, has been promoted to Head of Projects (International) alongside Fraser Davidson, previously UK and Europe Project Manager, who has now stepped into the role as Head of Projects (UK and Europe). Matt Corbett, Operations Director, said: “We’re extremely pleased to be able to promote both Ben and Fraser. They bring a wealth of experience to their roles and have been key assets to the J&C Joel Projects team. I believe they are the right people for the roles and have the right skills, work ethic and vision to lead and drive the team forward. I’m very much looking forward to working closely with them to implement innovative ideas and develop the department as well as seeing the team progress under their leadership.”

J&C Joel is expanding! Two fantastic opportunities have arisen to join our experienced sales team. J&C Joel has become renowned as one of the world’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of flame retardant fabrics, flooring, drapery and stage engineering to the entertainment and event industries. With offices in the UK, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Australasia, J&C Joel is perfectly placed to provide the inspiration behind any performance.

Regional Sales Manager - UK

ASEAN Sales Manager

Based: Sowerby Bridge (with travel) Salary: On Application (Plus excellent benefits)

Based: Hanoi, Vietnam (with travel) Salary: On Application (Plus excellent benefits)

The Regional Sales Manager will play a key role in driving sales across the UK to meet/exceed the company’s business objectives. The successful candidate will be responsible for a team of external sales representatives and internal UK Sales team offering sales expertise, customer service and technical advice to J&C Joel’s customer base.

Covering South East Asia, the ASEAN Sales Manager will further the awareness of J&C Joel’s products and services, increase sales revenue, and improve levels of customer satisfaction. As a J&C Joel Ltd representative in the field, the successful candidate will be the face of the company to existing, old and new customers.

To apply please send your CV to joanne.wheelwright@jcjoel.com for more information regarding this position please visit our website

www.jcjoel.com

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