Suzuki Presents @TheDriveIn

SUZUKI PRESENTS @THEDRIVEIN

The Mainstage Festival team takes its years of knowledge from green field sites to set up a touring drive-in concept that delivers entertainment to audiences up and down the country. TPi speaks to some of the team who make these events a reality.

While it may be a divisive issue in the live events industry, there is no denying that the drive-in concept offers a neat option for concertgoers to gather safely and adhere to COVID-19 restrictions. Adopted swiftly by event organisers in Europe and the United States, it was only a matter of time before the UK hosted its own brand of drive-in concerts and events. One of the first out of the gate was @TheDriveIn, which not only represented one of the first drive-in shows, but also presented one of the first examples of a touring production with multiple cities hosting a band of technical crew from July until October.

The production was brought to life by Mainstage Festivals – the team behind such events as Snowboxx, Kala, Explorations and ION. Mere days after having to turn his trucks back on the way to prep for Snowboxx and Anjunabeats Elevations in France, with the global pandemic putting paid to the company’s entire summer schedule, Festival Director, Alan Crofton began to hatch a plan to ensure that Mainstage would still be able to host at least one event this summer.

The result was Suzuki Presents @TheDriveIn – a multi-date, UK-wide tour to provide a safe and friendly event experience that offers fun, films and food. The retro-themed drive-in cinema experience brought a mixture of recent blockbusters and timeless classics to the big screen.

Hosting up to 130 cars per showing, the team hopes to give up to 15,000 customers a night of entertainment by the end of the run. As well as the film, each event also featured a selection of games including Lucky Licence

Plates, silent car discos, as well as live stand-up comedy. Taking up the story was Production Manager, Giles Bristow. “It’s really great to be back out working,” he began. The PM and his team had already successfully put on three nights of @TheDriveIn at Blackheath, South London – the first stop of the tour. “We’ve got a great site here and both the crew and the audience have loved the event so far,” he stated.

Winding the clocks back, the PM explained how the event came to pass. “After turning around the 17 trucks that were on their way to the French Alps for Snowboxx and Anjunabeats Elevations, I had a conversation with Alan about the idea of the drive-in show. Three weeks after saying I was interested, the website was up and running with the marketing team primed and ready to promote the event.”

Preparing any multiple-date tour brings up myriad details and stumbling blocks. Factor in the number of COVID-19 lockdown regulations and suddenly this becomes a very challenging task. “Due to the lockdown, we were unable to visit all the sites, so we relied heavily on Google Maps to develop a plan for each site,” stated the PM. Key to the success of this operation has been the fact that Bristow was able to surround himself with a number of long-standing crew as well as key suppliers that Mainstage has used for a number of its other events.

ADI provided its new iCONIC 60C screen, which is the largest containerised LED screen in Europe and the latest addition to the iCONIC fleet. The new offering is a 10.5m by 6m display in a container-style unit,

which allowed maximum visibility for the audience. “It’s an incredible piece for each city to ensure we are able to broadcast at each site,” Bristow of technology,” enthused the Production Manager. confirmed. For the transmission, the PM looked at all the various options

Du ring the build at Blackheath, a few of the ADI available but, in the end, opted to purchase a team came down to set up the system, with the brand-new system. goal of handing the reins over to the Mainstage “We purchased the system from a Dutch team once it was up and running, with a tech from company called Broadcast FM. It ended up being ADI also joining the crew on the road. cheaper to buy a new system than rent one for Thomas Taylor, ADI’s Business Development Manager commented: “Our continued investment “The first day I sat at my desk the 13-week run.” Bristow explained that this new system was “state of the art” offering both DSP and and innovation in event LED is bringing greater and started to pull everything RDS. “The broadcast we have is the highest quality choice and quality to organisers across the UK and Europe. The iCONIC 60C is particularly well suited together, I had forgotten audio signal and all of our content is DVD Blu-ray. The quality people have got from their cars is to the drive-in events that are so popular at the what it was like to advance absolutely outstanding.” moment since it delivers a huge HD LED screen with secure container unit, and comparatively something that was actually Moving the conversation onto the logistics of working on the site, TPi chatted to @TheDriveIn’s compact footprint. It’s great to see the new happening the following week Show Caller and Stage Manager, Heather McMillan. screens in action and entertaining audiences around the UK, starting with Suzuki Presents rather than the hypothetical Brought in a week prior to opening night, McMillan wasted no time into throwing herself into the @TheDriveIn.” events that have taken up my project. “It was nice to be back working on an The audio demands for the project were handled by Bristow’s own company, Acute Audio time during lockdown. I forgot event again,” she enthused. “There was a slight learning curve for the first show, working out how Productions. As with many of this style of show, how much I like the pressure!” to make the event work for an in-car audience and the audio solution selected was a transmitter that could then be tuned into by the audiences’ car Show Caller and Stage Manager, what shots would work for this kind of crowd.” She went on to explain how there had been radios. “I’ve personally been in touch with Ofcom Heather McMillan some trial and error in finding ways to engage

Production Manager, Giles Bristow; Show Caller and Stage Manager, Heather McMillan; Operations and Event Manager, Nat Taylor.

the live audiences. “Our first night of stand-up comedy before the movie screening was an interesting process,” she explained. “However, we have found so far that after a few minutes of finding their feet, the comics become accustomed to the setup, and the lack of normal response for a crowd in a venue.”

With a limited crew size, McMillan explained how most of the crew ended up wearing multiple hats throughout the production. “This event isn’t like a major festival where people have defined roles – it’s really just all hands-on deck,” she commented.

“I t’s just been such a buzz,” she concluded. “The first day I sat at my desk and started to pull everything together, I had forgotten what it was like to advance something that was actually happening the following week rather than the hypothetical events that have taken up my time during lockdown. I forgot how much I like the pressure!”

Also giving her two cents on the project was Operations and Event Manager, Nat Taylor. A familiar face at a number of Mainstage Festivals’ other projects, Taylor was one of the key members responsible for ensuring the safety of crew and audiences alike.

“We have an advance safety email that goes out to all ticket holders, which provides them with all the information they need for the site,” she began. “Anyone due to attend these events submits their car registration. This mean there is no need for any face-to-face interaction with audiences and our team on the doors.

“During the show, the only time people need to leave their cars is when they need to go to the toilets,” explained the Operations Manager. “For the toilets, we have put in place a 2m queueing system with hand sanitiser on the entrance and the exit.”

Food could be ordered throughout the show via an app-based system with servers bringing the orders to the car in a zero-contact system similar to that adopted by delivery services throughout lockdown. “We are encouraging attendees to also take all rubbish with them to avoid any contaminating,” interjected Bristow, who joked that he hoped this habit continued when regular events returned. “It is the cleanest site I have ever seen with next to no litter.”

“T he crowds have been very respectful of all the rules that are in place,” mused Taylor, “Almost everyone has followed the rules to the letter and been kind to our staff throughout.”

With the London dates coming to an end, @TheDriveIn is setting its sights on the rest of the UK. At the time of writing, the next stop on the itinerary is Newcastle, with Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol, Southampton and Brighton following close behind. TPi Photos: James North, @TheDriveIn and ADI www.atthedrive.in www.adi.tv www.aap.uk.com www.aph.uk.com www.rwslive.co.uk www.projectpower.co.uk www.fenceuk.co.uk

FESTIVALS REIMAGINED

Each year, TPi typically reports from muddy festival sites across Europe in August. This year, with live events postponed or cancelled, music festival organisers devise innovative ways to keep revellers entertained amid lockdown...

WIRELESS CONNECT

Organisers of Wireless Festival go back to the drawing board to recreate a one-of-a-kind virtual experience with the help of virtual curators, MelodyVR…

Having cancelled the 2020 show in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, organisers of Wireless Festival turned to MelodyVR to help launch a virtual version – Wireless Connect – from a bespoke location at Alexandra Palace in London and MelodyVR’s studio in LA. The threeday event, which took place on 3-5 July, featured new performances, exclusive footage and previous Wireless highlights.

Wireless Connect was broadcast to fans around the world and accessible to anyone with a smartphone or VR headset, and was free to watch, with fans encouraged to make a charity donation over the course of the weekend to Black Lives Matter.

Me lodyVR began its relationship with Live Nation-owned Festival Republic in 2019, taking on the ambitious challenge of broadcasting Wireless Festival in its entirety live in 360° VR from London’s Finsbury Park. With tickets to the festival having sold out in a record 30 minutes, the venture resulted in 250,000 additional music fans being able to experience the festival in an innovative new way as it happened.

This year, MelodyVR spent the start of 2020 gearing up for a summer of live broadcasts and captures in VR. Following the lockdown of live events, the company changed from busy in one direction to busy in another, creating more of its own content, with less time spent capturing traditional gigs and festivals. “We have all worked remotely in the US and the UK since the lockdown, orchestrating new projects,” MelodyVR’s Mike Darling said. “I’ve spent my time in Los Angeles, putting together a location in which to capture and stream US artist performances for our Live from LA series, building out our production team and set-up here, and making it work with the UK team contributing remotely to the creative and the captures.” Then Wireless Connect came along, and things then worked the other way around to LA, with the team in the UK putting in the work on the ground and Darling working on it with them remotely. “The whole company has pulled together on these projects over this time while we have been working apart from one another,” Darling explained.

The recent Wireless Connect and Live from LA projects are a result of the combined efforts of all the company’s functions. “There’s a team creating the space and capturing the visual element with our proprietary in-house designed cameras, processing and recording, another taking care of audio then post-production, app development and testing teams

constructing, promoting and delivering a high-quality format and end product that will be broadcast to viewers in the MelodyVR app via local content delivery networks.” The intensity, Darling said, was a result of “dedication and focus” – traits which are “company-wide, from top to bottom and start to finish.”

In addition, in the UK, Spiritland Productions provided an audio truck, Spiritland ONE, along with its years of experience in capturing and broadcasting some of the world’s most prominent and popular music concerts and festivals. “More specifically, Spiritland Productions delivered broadcast audio mixes in stereo and immersive formats.”

Recording of the festival was fully redundant, up to six times at multitrack/stem level. Spiritland ONE generated a number of compliance stems that were used for post-production, including vocal tuning on site; the onboard Riedel Communications system, which was integrated into the MelodyVR set-up; and the Blackmagic Design PTZ remote cameras housed inside of the vehicle, rigged in the venue and utilised by MelodyVR for 2D content.

Wi th both the LA and London locations, every precaution was taken to make the space safe. “Artists and performers remain in isolation for the duration of the performance and do not come into contact with the public or on-site crew,” Darling reported.

MelodyVR’s cutting-edge technology in combination with its in-house technical experience allowed for the crew to communicate with artists and handle all technical and production needs from an entirely separate area. “There is no direct, in-person interaction between artists, their teams and the MelodyVR team,” Darling furthered.

“Artists have a separate entrance to the building and to the performance to enable them to drive from door to door, enter the building, perform, and head home, with no cross-contamination,” he added. Having made waves with Wireless Connect, Darling believed the event flicked on a switch in the heads of many of the live music industry’s key decision makers – “be they promoters, agents, managers, or artists. I imagine this is just the start of something,” he quipped.

“M elodyVR was founded with the vision of providing fans with a new and exciting way of experiencing the live music they love, regardless of their location, age or financial means, and with a view that our company or content would never seek to replace the thrill of attending concerts, festivals or tours in person. Due to the recent events, we’re now presented with a landscape where mass-gatherings or public events are prohibited, which is extremely damaging to both artists and to the music industry.”

As a c ompany that has deep-rooted experience with virtual events and immersive content, MelodyVR is well positioned to benefit the music industry, with partners such as promoters, artists, managers and record labels; many of whom are unable to conduct their business operations as usual. Darling commented: “Our studio facility in LA and the production we have created for Wireless Connect, both custom designed to maintain stringent safety standards whilst creating the highest possible quality content, leverages our unique skillset of broadcasting immersive performances digitally via the MelodyVR platform.”

Throughout the course of the year ahead, MelodyVR will continue to se rve its consumers and the music industry by creating and broadcasting performances to fans from the MelodyVR studio location in Los Angeles, venues like O2 Academy Brixton in London as well as from other locations in different territories. TPi Photos: Luke Dyson www.wirelessfestival.co.uk/connect www.melodyvr.com

LOST HORIZON

The team involved in Glastonbury’s Shangri-La dust off their VJ kit for the debut of Lost Horizon Festival – a virtual production broadcast to a 4.36 million global audience.

Lost Horizon, recently crowned the world’s largest virtual reality music and arts festival, took place on 3-4 July 2020 to a huge worldwide audience of 4.36 million viewers from over 1,100 cities and 100 countries around the world across VR, PC, iOS and Android mobile app, plus online streams, via Beatport, Twitch and across social media platforms. Behind the feat was a core crew of creatives and VJs with a longstanding relationship with Worthy Farm.

Having used visuals in the field for several years, from Glastonbury’s video-mapped Heaven Arena to the more recent Gas Tower, Creative Giants Digital Curator, Simon Vaughan was integral to getting this ambitious project off the ground. “We could see the opportunity to remain being creative in the COVID-19 world and work with our community to do something ground-breaking,” he said.

With the decision made to include the Gas Tower within Lost Horizon’s VR festival landscape, Creative Giants assembled a core crew of creatives in More Eyes’ Pete Thornton, We Are Midnight’s Daniel Shutt, We Are Not Content’s Malcolm Litson, and ddld design’s Nick Diacre. “Any project like this requires new ways of working, so it was key to have a dependable team that always succeed in adversity – something we are often against in a muddy field, but always deliver.”

While Thornton led the VJ programming and production charge, it was a team effort, with each member of the crew playing a key role in a project where “extreme timelines” were in place. Vaughan explained that despite his longstanding affiliation with Shangri-La, this project was “next level” on all accounts – firmly pushing the envelope of innovation. “Each year, we push ourselves through heatwaves and thunderstorms to produce a spectacular in the Shangri-La field, and Lost Horizon was no different.”

Pete Thornton, one half of TPi Award-winning visual outfit, More Eyes, picked up the story: “We were contacted by Simon from Creative Giants and our friends at Shangri-La back in March after Glastonbury 2020 was officially cancelled,” he reminisced. “We had all been talking about the real-world festival prior to this, but as it became clear that wasn’t going to be possible, the focus turned to a virtual-reality event instead. When they asked if we would be interested in getting involved, we all jumped at the chance.”

The event, devised by the team behind behind Glastonbury’s ShangriLa, in partnership with VRJAM and Sansar, and in collaboration with Orca Sound Project and Beatport, delivered a deep multilayered experience, filled with wild dancefloors, a visual feast of art and performance, and an interstellar line up of superstar DJs and underground artists, all taking part to raise money for The Big Issue and Amnesty International UK.

Created using Sansar, Wookey Technologies’ photorealistic platform for virtual live events, Lost Horizon was a truly unique virtual and mixed-reality festival unlike any other, featuring computer-generated avatars and green screen ‘hologram’ performances from a line-up of global artists, including: Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim and Peggy Gou, to Frank Turner and Coldcut.

“The DJs visited their local green screen studios right across the world – London, Bristol, LA, and Tokyo, among others – to record themselves and their DJ sets,” reminisced Thornton. “For the acts on the Gas Tower stage, these pre-recorded sets were then handed over to our team of VJs to work with. In total, we had 24 leading VJs and visual artists create fully custom 360° content for this special one-off show.”

The final files were uploaded to Vimeo, integrated into the VR environment and mapped to the eight screens by the Sansar tech team led by Ollie Rankin. “Everything moves quickly, so you have to consider the

viewpoint of spectators, devising content which isn’t too jarring. Creating and projecting 360° content in the real world is hard enough, but to deliver it within a live VR environment is a special achievement and a true first.”

With a total of 24, one-hour sets to get over the line, time was against the team. The collective devised a way to standardise the final delivery of the work by the VJs. “This involved processing all the green screen content so it was essentially the same format and could be dropped straight into the VR environment,” Thornton explained.

“DJs were scaled to be the same size and backgrounds were all keyed in the same way. That could then be combined with the 360° video content from our awesome line-up of VJs which included Enjoy Kaos, L’aubaine, Leds Akimbo and Joëlle. Very fortuitously, there was a Notch update halfway through production which was specifically for helping with green screen keying, which saved hours and hours of prep time.”

Vaughan believed the sheer amount of work involved to achieve the virtual festival was much the same as in the real world. “The artworks the VJs made blew my tiny little mind. How the team pulled through adversity and found every way to make it work was outstanding,” Vaughan said. “It really couldn’t have happened without the pure dedication the team put in – going that extra step to making something truly special.”

Performances from over 70 artists were captured in 12 countries across the world and production included custom merchandise for charities and custom avatars for performers, including Shangri-La legend Chris Tofu, in addition to the six-plus virtual worlds purpose-built for the occasion. “With it being broadcast in VR, we were wary of not overloading the optics of the viewer,” Thornton explained. During this first fully interactive, multi-stage two-day event, in-world attendees had access to move around inside the space, chat and interact with other festival goers, just as if they were at a real-life festival.

“During the first day, I was just on the standard laptop version to witness some of the various stages and streams from a 2D perspective,” Thornton stated. “When the second day came around, I got my hands on a VR headset at More Eyes HQ to fully immerse myself into the digital world.”

Revellers had the ability to communicate with friends either in a chat room or speaking directly via headsets. People could watch the various acts from wherever they liked and even teleport across the dance floor. “My avatar donned a skeleton suit with a Lost Horizon T-shirt, which I managed to pick up from the digital merch stall, complete with pink light-up shoes and a pink pompadoured quiff,” laughed Thornton, recalling his threeyear-old daughter’s choice of outfit. Though despite his extravagant digital garms, the VJ wasn’t the most extravagantly dressed in the digital field. “Like any festival, you got a sense of the fun from people dressing up. There were people dressed as a giant slice of toast, a floating turtle, a cow in a suit, a wireframe robot and some people just in their pants!”

In this new virtual horizon, acts performing on stage were also present in the virtual world, interacting with festivalgoers and experiencing this world-first event. Lost Horizon and Shangri-La Creative Director, Kaye Dunnings, commented: “I don’t think you can ever recreate the feeling of being in a crowd of people, and how powerful that is, but it was spooky how similar it was to the real thing. I met up with friends, made new ones, was able to make an avatar that could dance (moves I could never pull off in real life!) and the classic festival experience of bumbling between areas, overhearing conversations and marvelling at the wonderful looks people had created for themselves was just like people watching at a festival.”

Fatboy Slim, who performed on the Gas Tower, programmed by Orca Sound Project, commented: “Thanks to the Lost Horizon crew for popping my VR cherry. The experience had almost the same euphoric feeling as being at a real festival. For those interested or in there with me, I was the one with Halle Berry’s body and a big smiley head, dancing my tits off, mind slightly blown by the experience of watching myself DJ. As surreal and trippy as a real late adventure in the Shangri-La.”

Wi th nine camera angles in each of the four Lost Horizon ‘worlds’, the online Beatport/YouTube/Twitch streams were live vision mixed by the team at Video Illusions, to create the engaging and surreal streams beamed live and direct into homes across the globe. “The static feeds via mobile phone apps were brilliant. The sound quality was excellent, and you were able to choose which one of the fixed camera positions to view from. By diving into any of the various broadcast platforms, you could have a totally different experience,” Thornton noted.

The VR team had the ability to turn on and of an ‘anti-gravity’ mode, where avatars were able to jump around as if they were in space. “One of the best things about being inside VR was the ability to create your own viewpoints. While anti-gravity was employed, I managed to scale the top of the Gas Tower for a birds-eye viewpoint of the festival and the revellers,” the VJ reported.

Th e virtual festival set a new benchmark for engagement of audiences in immersive content, with a total reach generated by live virtual reality content totalling 11,792,896 people across the two-day event. “I think there is a future in this type of event,” Thornton hypothesised.

“I can see things like this run in tandem with live events, it’s an option for festival organisers to get a larger, global reach online – and while a virtual audience can never replace the energy and excitement, it’s ideal for situations like this where we all can’t be in the same room together.” Viewing figures aside, Vaughan said, that the DJs were impressed with the

experience and the efforts of the VJ team, “It was no different to anything they would perform in the real world,” he summed up. “Would I do it again? Hell yeah, although I would hope that we can be all together when we are actually making it, and not over Zoom!”

Lost Horizon and Shangri-La Director, Robin Collings commented: “We are back in creative mode, dreaming up ways to develop and re-imagine the whole experience, expand our audiences and make the platform more accessible.”

To close, Thornton praised the Shangri-La production team – Kaye, Chris and Robin – who did a “fantastic” job in curating the stages and bringing together global artists and VJs in such a short space of time. “There’s a lot of time and technology being invested into these types of shows now and nobody knows where it will ultimately lead to. The full VR experience felt surprisingly real, and close to a real-world event because of the immersive aspects. Being able to create an avatar, choose your outfit, look around in full 360°, meeting up with your friends inside VR and being able to chat directly with them was so much fun.”

Ed Jenkins and Jolyon Klean, Orca Sound Project, concluded: “Programming the Gas Tower in Lost Horizon felt like putting together a dream festival line-up. The goodwill and excitement surrounding such an innovative and experimental project just goes to show how the rule book has been re-written by the challenges we all face in the entertainment industry. Hopefully we’ve proven that there are new frontiers to explore and ways to communicate with fans that continue to push boundaries.” TPi Photos: Shangri-La www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk www.shangrilaglastonbury.co.uk www.losthorizonfestival.com www.moreeyes.co.uk

ROCK WERCHTER

An Adamson PA system sounds out a series of intimate concerts at Rock Werchter’s new Zomerbar to raise funds for Live2020, a new industry solidarity fund for the Belgian live music industry…

Taking place at Festivalpark Werchter, under the North West Walls towers on 2-5 July, the organisers of Rock Werchter launched a series of intimate concerts at the festival’s new Zomerbar to raise funds for Live2020, a solidarity fund to support the Belgian live music industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ta sked with bringing the unique sonic experience to life was Systems Engineer, Patrick Demoustier. As the only member of the Rock Werchter Live2020 audio crew, the Sound Designer reflected on where he was when the lockdown of live events came into effect.

“I w as in Maastricht, the Netherlands, mixing a BLOF when the lockdown first happened,” he reported. “We were three days into a 35-date theatre tour when the news broke.”

Having been involved in previous incarnations of Rock Werchter – a stalwart of the audio team since 1986 – Demoustier has witnessed the evolution of the event from its heady days at Torhout to 2019’s five-stage extravaganza, with 60,000 festival revellers in attendance daily. “This year, of course, was completely different due to the pandemic,” he conceded. “Attendees were seated at tables with one small stage. Instead of 60,000 faces, organisers suggested a 400-person maximum capacity each day.”

Despite the COVID-19 safety precautions and guidelines, the muchlauded ‘Werchter philosophy’ of technologically advanced shows and high-quality performances stayed the same.

“Although the stage was small, it was beautiful and expertly decorated, as were the dressing rooms,” Demoustier recalled. “While the field was surrounded by containers, they were decorated with pieces of wood, so not only was it safe – it looked very pretty.”

Ro ck Werchter Live2020 marked Demoustier’s second foray into live events in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic – his first was a livestreamed TV broadcast from a beach for the Concert at Sea Festival, complete with a small, suitably socially distanced audience. “It is another large Belgian festival that is typically held on that beach for thousands of attendees every year,” he explained, before sharing some thoughts on getting back to work at Werchter. “It was a very emotional experience; it felt so unreal to be in the same place as you would be each year, but with added restrictions in place with a smaller audience.”

On s ite, health and safety precautions helped ensure the safety of the performing artists and the crew. “We all wore masks and alcohol hand gel was in abundance. PRG also built and deployed a UV-C device to disinfect talkies and microphones every night,” he explained. “The audience had to stay seated at tables that were 3m apart and drinks and food could only be ordered by scanning a barcode on the table, with table service. There were also more than 100 toilets available for attendees.”

Wi th a “super tight” budget to contend with, the crew decided to harness a small in-house kit. “With one band per day, which played twice, there was plenty of time for set up and soundcheck with one sound engineer.”

The PA system comprised a main hang of 18 Adamson E15s and an under hang of six E12s. Subwoofers came in the shape of 12 Adamson

E219s, while front fill duties were performed by eight CS7s with a pair of CS7ps in the centre. The entire system was driven by a pair of Lake LM44 processors and 12 Lab.gruppen PLM20K44s on a redundant Dante network.

“This is my preferred sound system,” the sound designer said. “It sounds so natural and powerful. There are many good systems on the market, but the sound of the Adamson E-Series and S-Series is the best you can get, in my opinion.”

Demoustier deployed an oversized rig for the size of the crowd. “When we built this PA system, the festival organiser was still hoping that we could broker an 800-capacity audience instead of 400,” he explained. “We received great comments on the sound from the crowd and the engineers that visited.”

For audio control, a DiGiCo SD12 96 was chosen for FOH and monitors. A range of wireless and wired IEMs were deployed for crew and artists, along with a litany of Shure (B52, B58, SM58, SM57, B91), Sennheiser (E906, E904, MD421), Neumann (KM184, KM185), and AKG 414 mics and BSS DIs.

“When you are the only member of the sound team, being organised is paramount,” Demoustier said. “I prepared as much of the kit as I could in

advance, providing guest multis in all formats. Thankfully, with only one band a day, it was quite a peaceful process.”

While each band played twice a day, there was a one-hour DJ set before and after the gig – including an additional hour devoted to cleaning and disinfecting the tables for the next round of audience members. “The DJ rider included three Pioneer CDJ 2000s, a Pioneer DJM Nexus and two EMLEMW wedges,” Demoustier stated.

“In normal circumstances, my next gig would be a TV show with several bands at the beach with a large crowd. This year, given the arrival of COVID-19, it’s in an indoor casino for a 200-capacity crowd. The outbreak of the virus has caused all the events in my diary to be put on ice, or in most cases, cancelled,” he concluded. “I’m looking forward to the day we can go back to work when it is safe to do so.” TPi Photos courtesy of Live Nation www.adamsonsystems.com www.live2020.be www.rockwerchter.be

L E D s o l u t i o n s fo r V i r t u a l s t u d i o s

A r e w e t o w i t n e s s t h e e n d o f t h e g r e e n -s c r e e n e r a ? L E D p a n e ls a re t h e id e a l s o lu t io n to p o r t r a y s e t a n d b a c k g ro u n d s c re a te d in v ir t u a l re a lit y . C re a t in g t h e r ig h t c a n v a s is n o t ju s t b u ild in g a n y L E D s c re e n . It ’s w h e re t h e L E D p a n e l, p ro c e s s in g a n d c a m e r a s e t t in g c o m e to g e t h e r t h a t s t u n n in g re s u lt s a re a c h ie v e d . W it h it s h ig h -e n d m a n u fa c t u rin g a n d p re m iu m p a r t s t h e R O E V is u a l L E D p ro d u c t s a re p e r fe c t ly s u ite d fo r v ir t u a l s t a g e s a n d p ro d u c t io n s . M o re in fo r m a t io n o n : w w w .r o e v i s u a l .c o m

P ic t u re b y : F a b e r A u d io v is u a ls

W W W .R O E V I S U A L.C O M

RAVENNA FESTIVAL

d&b Soundscape Powers Italy’s reimagined Ravenna Festival into its 31st edition.

Leading the way in a new era of live entertainment, Ravenna once again hosted its spectacular opera and classical music festival, deploying a d&b Soundscape immersive sound system to bring it to life.

Ravenna Festival, which is in its 31st edition, is a summer festival held in the city of Ravenna, Italy and the surrounding area. The festival ran from 21 J une until 30 July, but this year, due to COVID-19 restrictions, it looked far different to previous years. For the organisers, cancelling the festival was never an option, instead new programmes were put in place to ensure they could offer the best cultural and artistic experience to an audience that was for months deprived of both.

“This is our most important festival yet; people in Italy and around the world have been waiting months to experience the joy of live music,” commented Giulia Artemisia Nicosia from BH Audio, who supplied the audio system for the festival.

This year, a large part of the programme took place in the open air of the Brancaleone Fortress in the centre of Ravenna. From here, some 300 people could enjoy the shows live. For those who missed out on these coveted seats, almost all the concerts were streamed online.

For the audience, as well as the performers, temperature checks and masks were in full effect.

To power the uniqueness of this year’s festival, BH audio turned to d&b’s Soundscape to provide a truly immersive sound experience both for the audience at the festival and those at home.

“We k new we needed a system that would provide the audiences – no matter where they were – with a truly immersive sound experience, and d&b Soundscape was the only way to do that,” said Nicosia. “One of the main challenges for the orchestra was the distance between them – which, of course, has a huge impact on the sound. In order to combat this, we used the virtual acoustic shell with Soundscape to help the musicians to hear each other and simulate better acoustics on stage.”

Two DS100 processors with the d&b Soundscape software plus over 60 d&b loudspeakers were used for the live concert: one for the audience and one to create the “virtual acoustic shell” for the musicians. A third DS100 was used for the streaming service, to create an enhanced mix for the stereo stream. En-Scene was utilised to virtually position the objects in the stereo mix, while En-Space simulated the 360° loudspeakers at the venue to create the “concert hall acoustics” through an ambisonic plugin.

“We u sed a 360° En-Scene setup in the venue which, combined with En-Space, helped us to recreate the acoustics of different rooms depending on the type of performance,” commented Nicosia. “For example, we used the newly acquired ninth room San Vitale – the cathedral for sacred music – while for the orchestra on the opening concert, we used the classical large room, which has an open-air environment. The effect that we can achieve outdoors with En-Space really is a game-changer.”

The Ravenna Festival performances can be heard by audiences worldwide via the festival’s livestream. TPi Photos: d&b audiotechnik www.ravennafestival.live www.dbaudio.com

WOODSTOCK DER BLASMUSIK

The popular Austrian music festival goes digital with Allen & Heath.

Since its inception in 2011, the Woodstock der Blasmusik festival has attracted crowds of up to 60,000 brass music fans each June, to Ort im Innkreis in Austria. With brass aficionados obliged to stay at home by COVID-19, this year the organisers treated them to an evening of livestreamed performances from the festival site, featuring eight bands and mixed from an Allen & Heath dLive system.

The FOH and broadcast audio rig for this online incarnation of the festival was supplied and managed by Martin Bröll of Greenbee Records Studios, working closely with the festival’s technical manager, Mario Schwarz, who oversaw all aspects of the audio, video and streaming.

With eight bands, three stages and over 60 inputs to look after, Bröll chose his DM32 MixRack as the core of a dLive system running the PA sound, broadcast mix and intercoms. Portable DX168 expanders were added for local IO on the main stages, plus a modular DX32 expander for front of house IO and connection of outboard FX and compressors.

Th e DM32 was fitted with a Waves3 card for integration with a Soundgrid Server One for additional plugins. The performances were mixed on a dLive S5000 Surface, with a secondary mixer taking care of summing mixes, video sound and interview mics. A Dante 128x128 card in the S5000 allowed Bröll to capture multitrack recordings of the performances on two laptops running Dante Virtual Soundcard.

“With several bands performing on multiple stages over six hours, the main challenge with this event was managing the channel routing efficiently,” Bröll explained. “I had worked with iLive in the past and upgraded to dLive last September, so I knew it was the right solution. Another really important factor for me is dLive’s easy integration with Waves plugins and Dante.”

Asked what the secret to mixing brass instruments is, Bröll confided: “You have to treat brass instruments like human voices. They have a huge dynamic range and many overtones. You need to be very sparing with equalisation and compression. You have to really ride the faders.”

The organisers of Woodstock der Blasmusik were pleased with the success of the livestream and the quality of the audio and are looking forward to welcoming the brass-loving audience once more in 2021. TPi Photos: KM-photography www.allen-heath.com www.greenbee-records.at